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CHINA, JAPAN 

AND THE U. S. A. 



Present-day Conditions 

in the Far East 

and Their Bearing on 

the Washington 

Conference 

by 

JOHN DEWEY 

Professor ot Philosophy at 
Columbia University 




New Republic Pamphlet No. I 

Published by the 
REPUBLIC PUBLISHING CO., INC 

421 West Twenty-first Street 

. New York City 

I 9 2 I 









Copyright 192 1 
Republic Publishing Co. Inc. 



'0)CU630332 



m 12 1951 



^Vtk-^" 



CHINA, JAPAN and the U. S. A. 

Introductory Note 

The articles following are reprinted as they were 
written in spite of the fact that any picture of con- 
temporary events is modified by subsequent in- 
crease of knowledge and by later events. In the 
main, however, the writer would still stand by 
what zvas said at the time. A few foot notes 
have been inserted where the text is likely to 
give rise to misapprehensions. The date of 
zvriting has been retained as a guide to the reader. 



On Two Sides of the Eastern Seas 

IT is three days' easy journey from Japan to China. It is 
doubtful whether anywhere in the world another journey 
of the same length brings with it such a complete change 
of political temper and belief. Certainly it is greater than the 
alteration perceived in journeying directly from San Francisco 
to Shanghai. The difference is not one in customs and modes 
of life; that goes without saying. It concerns the ideas, beliefs 
and alleged information current about one and the same fact: 
the status of Japan in the international world and especially 
its attitude toward China. One jfinds everywhere in Japan a 
feeling of uncertainty, hesitation, even of weakness. There 
is a subtle nervous tension in the atmosphere as of a country 
on the verge of change but not knowing where the change will 
take it. Liberalism is in the air, but genuine liberals are en- 
compassed with all sorts of difficulties especially in combining 
their liberalism with the devotion to theocratic robes which 
the imperialisic militarists who rule Japan have so skilfully 
thrown about the Throne and the Government. But what one 
senses in China from the first moment is the feeling of the all- 
pervading power of Japan which is working as surely as fate 
to its unhesitating conclusion — the domination of Chinese pol- 
itics and industry by Japan with a view to its final absorption. 
It is not my object to analyze the realities of the situation 

[3] 



or to inquire whether the universal feeling in China is a col- 
lective hallucination or is grounded in fact. The phenomenon 
is worthy of record on its own account. Even if it be merely 
psychological, it is a fact which must be reckoned with in both 
its Chinese and its Japanese aspects. In the first place, 
as to the differences in psychological atmosphere. Everybody 
who knows anything about Japan knows that it is the land of 
reserves and reticences. The half-informed American will tell 
you that this Is put on for the misleading of foreigners. The 
informed know that it is an attitude shown to foreigners only 
because It is deeply engrained In the moral and social tradition 
of Japan; and that, if anything, the Japanese are more likely 
to be communicative — about many things at least — to a sym- 
pathetic foreigner, than to one another. The habit of re- 
serve Is so deeply embedded In all the etiquette, convention 
and daily ceremony of living, as well as in the ideals of strength 
of character, that only the Japanese who have subjected them- 
selves to foreign influences escape it — and many of them re- 
vert. To put it mildly, the Japanese are not a loquacious 
people; they have the gift of doing rather than of gab. 

When accordingly a Japanese statesman or visiting diplo- 
matist engages in unusually prolonged and frank discourse set- 
ting forth the aims and procedures of Japan, the student of 
politics who has been long In the East at once becomes alert, 
not to say suspicious. A recent illustration Is so extreme that 
it will doubtless seem fantastic beyond belief. But the student 
at home will have to take these seeming fantasies seriously if 
he wishes to appreciate the present atmosphere of China. 
Cables have brought fragmentary reports of some addresses 
of Baron Goto in America. Doubtless in the American at- 
mosphere these have the effect of reassuring America as to 
any improper ambitions on the part of Japan. In China, they 
were taken as announcements that Japan has about completed 
its plans for the absorption of China, and that the lucubration 
preliminary to operations of swallowing are about to begin. 
The reader Is forgiven In advance any scepticism he feels about 
both the fact itself and the correctness of my report of the 
behef In the alleged fact. His scepticism will not surpass what 
I should feel in his place. But the suspicion aroused by such 
statements as this and the recent interview of Foreign Minister 

[4] 



tJchida arid Baron Ishii must be noted as evidences of the uni^ 
versal belief in China that Japan has one mode of diplomacy 
for the East and another for the West, and that what is said 
in the West must be read in reverse in the East. 

China, whatever else it is, is not the land of privacies. It 
is a proverb that nothing long remains secret in China. The 
Chinese talk more easily than they act — especially in politics. 
They are adepts in reveaUng their own shortcomings. They 
dissect their own weaknesses and failures with the most extra- 
ordinary reasonableness. One of the defects upon which they 
dwell is the love of finding substitutes for positive action, of 
avoiding entering upon a course of action which might be ir- 
revocable. One almost wonders whether their power of self- 
criticism is not itself another of these substitutes. At all events, 
they are frank to the point of loquacity. Between the opposite 
camps there are always communications flowing. Among of- 
ficial enemies there are "sworn friends." In a land of per- 
petual compromise, etiquette as well as necessity demands that 
the ways for later accommodations be kept open. Consequent- 
ly things which are spoken of only under the breath in Japan 
are shouted from the housetops in China. It would hardly be 
good taste in Japan to allude to the report that influential 
♦Chinese ministers are in constant receipt of Japanese funds 
and these corrupt ofiicials are the agencies by which political 
and economic concessions were wrung from China while Eu- 
rope and America were busy with the war. But in China no- 
body even takes the trouble to deny it or even to discuss it. 
What is psychologically most impressive is the fact that it is 
merely taken for granted. When it is spoken of, it is as one 
mentions the heat on an unusually hot day. 

In speaking of the feeling of weakness current in Japan 
about Japan itself, one must refer to the economic situation 
because of its obvious connection with the international situa- 
tion. In the first place, there is the strong impression that 
Japan is over-extended. Even in normal times, Japan relies 
more upon production for foreign markets than is regarded 
in most countries as safe policy. And there is the belief that 
Japan must do so, because only by large foreign sellings — 
large in comparison with the purchasing power of a people 
still having a low standard of life — can it purchase the raw 

[s] 



materials — and even food — it has to have. But during the 
war, the dependence of manufacturing and trade at home upon 
the foreign market v/as greatly increased. The domestic in- 
crease of wealth, though very great, is still too much in the 
hands of the few to affect seriously the internal demand for 
goods. Item one, which awakens sympathy for Japan as be- 
ing in a somewhat precarious situation. 

Another item concerns the labor situation. Japan seems to 
feel itself in a dilemma. If she passes even reasonably decent 
factory laws (or rather attempts their enforcement) and regu- 
lates child and women's labor, she will lose that advantage 
of cheap labor which she now counts on to offset her many 
disadvantages. On the other hand, strikes, labor difficulties, 
agitation for unions, etc., are constantly increasing, and the 
tension in the atmosphere is unmistakable. The rice riots are 
not often spoken of, but their memory persists, and the fact 
that they came very near to assuming a directly political aspect. 
Is there a race between fulfillment of the aspirations of the 
military clans who still hold the reins, and the growth of 
genuinely democratic forces which will forever terminate those 
aspirations? Certainly the defeat of Germany gave a blow to 
bureaucratic militarism in Japan which in time will go far. 
Will it have the time required to take effect on foreign policy? 
The hope that it will is a large factor in stimulating liberal 
sympathy for a Japan which is beginning to undergo the throes 
of transition. 

As for the direct international situation of Japan, the feel- 
ing in Japan is that of the threatening danger of isolation. 
Germany is gone; Russia is gone. While those facts simplify 
matters for Japan somewhat, there is also the belief that in 
taking away potential allies, they have weakened Japan in the 
general game of balance and counter-balance of power. Par- 
ticularly does the removal of imperialistic Russia relieve the 
threat on India which, was such a factor in the willingness of 
Great Britain to make the offensive-defensive alliance. The 
revelation of the militaristic possibilities of America is another 
serious factor. Certainly the new triple entente cordiale of 
Japan, Italy and France is no adequate substitute for a re- 
alignment of international forces in which a common under- 
standing between Great Britain and America is a dominant 

[6] 



factor. This factor explains, if it does not excuse, some of 
the querulousness and studied discourtesies with which the 
Japanese press for some months treated President Wilson, 
the United States in general and its relation to the League of 
Nations in particular, while it also throws light on the ardor 
with which the opportune question of racial discrimination was 
discussed. (The Chinese have an unfailing refuge in a sense 
of humor. It was interesting to note the delight with which 
they received the utterance of the Japanese Foreign Minister, 
after Japanese success at Paris, that "his attention had re- 
cently been called" to various press attacks on America which 
he much deprecated). In any case there is no mistaking the 
air of tension and nervous overstrain which now attends all 
discussion of Japanese foreign relations. In all directions, 
there are characteristic signs of hesitation, shaking of old be- 
liefs and movement along new lines. Japan seems to be much 
in the same mood as that which it experienced in the early 
eighties before, toward the close of that decade, it crystallized 
its Institutions through acceptance of the German constitution, 
militarism, educational system, and diplomatic methods. So 
that, once more, the observer gets the Impression that substan- 
tially all of Japan's energy, abundant as that is, must be de- 
voted to her urgent problems of readjustment. 

Come to China, and the difference Is incredible. It almost 
seems as If one were living in a dream; or as if some new 
Alice had ventured behind an International looking-glass where- 
in everything Is reversed. That we In America should have 
little Idea of the state of things and the frame of mind in 
China is not astonishing — especially in view of the censorship 
and the distraction of attention of the last few years. But 
that Japan and China should be so geographically near, and 
yet every fact that concerns them appear in precisely opposite 
perspective, is an experience of a life time, Japanese liberal- 
ism? Yes, it is heard of, but only In connection with one form 
which the longing for the miraculous dens ex machina takes. 
Perhaps a revolution In Japan may Intervene to save China 
from the fate which now hangs over her. But there Is no sug- 
gestion that anything less than a complete revolution will 
alter or even retard the course which is attributed to Japanese 
diplomacy working hand In hand with Japanese business Inter- 

[7] ■ 



ests and militarism. The collapse of Russia and Germany? 
These things only mean that Japan has in a few years fallen 
complete heir to Russian hopes, achievements and possessions 
in Manchuria and Outer Mongolia, and has had opportunities 
in Siberia thrown into her hands which she could hardly have 
hoped for in her most optimistic moments. And now Japan 
has, with the blessing of the great Powers at Paris, become 
also the heir of German concessions, intrigues and ambitions, 
with added concessions, wrung (or bought) from incompetent 
and corrupt officials by secret agreements when the world was 
busy with war. If all the great Powers are so afraid of Japan 
that they give way to her every wish, what is China that she 
can escape the doom prepared for her? That is the cry of 
helplessness going up all over China. And Japanese propa- 
gandists take advantage of the situation, pointing to the action 
of the Peace Conference as proof that the Allies care nothing 
for China, and that China must throw herself into the arms 
of Japan if she is to have any protection at all. In short, 
Japan stands ready as she stood ready in Korea to guarantee 
the integrity and independence of China. And the fear that 
the latter must, in spite of her animosity toward Japan, accept 
this fate in order to escape something worse swims in the 
sinister air. It is the exact counterpart of the feeling current 
among the liberals in Japan that Japan has alienated China 
permanently when a considerate and slower course might have 
united the two countries. If the economic straits of Japan are 
alluded to, it is only as a reason why Japan has hurried her 
diplomatic coercion, her corrupt and secret bargainings with 
Chinese traitors and her industrial Invasion. While the western 
world supposes that the military and the Industrial party In 
Japan have opposite ideas as to best methods of securing Japa- 
nese supremacy In the East, It is the universal opinion in China 
that they two are working in complete understanding with one 
another, and the differences that sometimes occur between the 
Foreign Office In Tokyo and the Minstry of War (which is 
extra-constitutional in Its status) are staged for effect. 

These are some of the aspects of the most complete transfor- 
mation scene that It has ever been the lot of the writer to ex- 
perience. May it turn out to be only an extraordinary psy- 
chological experience! But In the interests of truth it must 

[8] 



be recorded that every resident of China, Chinese or American, 
with whom I have talked in the last four weeks has volunteered 
the beUef that all the seeds of a future great war are now deeply 
implanted in China. To avert such a calamity they look to the 
League of Nations or to some other force outside the immediate 
scene. Unfortunately the press of Japan treats every attempt 
to discuss the state of opinion in China or the state of facts 
as evidence that America, having tasted blood in the war, now 
has its eyes on Asia with the expectation later on of getting its 
hands on Asia. Consequently America is interested in trying 
to foster ill-will between China and Japan. If the pro-Ameri- 
can Japenese do not enlighten their fellow-countrymen as to the 
facts, then America ought to return some of the propaganda 
that visits its shores. But every American who goes to Japan 
ought also to visit China — if only to complete his education. 

May, 1919. 

II 

Shantung, As Seen From Within 

I. 

AMERICAN apologists for that part of the Peace Treaty 
which relates to China have the advantage of the il- 
' lusions of distance. , Most of the arguments seem 
strange to anyone who lives in China even for a few months. 
He finds the Japanese on the spot using the old saying about 
territory consecrated by treasure spent and blood shed. He 
reads in Japanese papers and hears from moderately liberal 
Japanese that Japan must protect China, as well as Japan, 
against herself, against her own weak or corrupt government, 
by keeping control of Shantung to prevent China from again 
ahenating that territory to some other power. 

The history of European aggression in China gives this ar- 
gument great force among the Japanese, who for the most 
part know nothing more about what actually goes on in China 
than they used to know about Korean conditions. These con- 
siderations, together with the immense expectations raised 
among the Japanese during the war concerning their coming 

[9] 



domination of the Far East and the unswerving demand of ex- 
cited public opinion in Japan during the Versailles Conference 
for the settlement that actually resulted, give an ironic turn 
to the statement so often made that Japan may be trusted to 
carry out her promises. Yes, one is often tempted to say, that 
is precisely what China fears, that Japan will carry out her 
promises, for then China is doomed. To one who knows the 
history of foreign aggression in China, especially the technique 
of conquest by railway and finance, the irony of promising to 
keep economic rights while returning sovereignty lies so on 
the surface that it Is hardly Irony. China might as well be 
offered Kant's Critique of Pure Reason on a silver platter as 
be offered sovereignty under such conditions. The latter is 
equally metaphysical. 

A visit to Shantung and a short residence in its capital city, 
Tslnan, made the conclusions, which so far is I know every 
foreigner in China has arrived at, a living thing. It gave a 
vivid picture of the many and intimate ways In which economic 
and political rights are Inextricably entangled together. It 
made one realize afresh that only a President who kept him- 
self innocent of any knowledge of secret treaties during the 
war, could be naive enough to believe that the promise to re- 
turn complete sovereignty retaining only economic rights Is a 
satisfactory solution. It threw fresh light upon the contention 
that at most and at worst Japan had only taken over German 
rights, and that since we had acquiesced In the latter's arroga- 
tions we had no call to make a fuss about Japan. It revealed 
the hoilowness of the claim that pro-Chinese propaganda had 
wilfully misled Americans into confusing the few hundred 
square miles around the port of Tslng-tao with the Province 
of Shantung with Its thirty millions of Chinese population. , 

As for the comparison of Germany and Japan one might sup- 
pose that the objects for which America nominally entered the 
war had made. In any case, a difference. But aside from this 
consideration, the Germans exclusively employed Chinese In 
the railway shops and for all the minor positions on the rail- 
way Itself. The railway guards (the difference between police 
and soldiers is nominal in China) were all Chinese, the Germans 
merely training them. As soon as Japan invaded Shantung and 
took over the railway, Chinese workmen and Chinese military 

[lo] 



guards were at once dismissed and Japanese imported to take 
their places. Tslnan-fu, the inland terminus of the ex-German 
railway, is over two hundred miles from Tsing-tao. When the 
Japanese took over the German railway business office, they 
at once built barracks, and today there are several hundred 
soldiers still there — where Germany kept none. Since the ar- 
mistice even, Japan has erected a powerful military wireless ^ 
within the grounds of the garrison, against of course the una- 
vaihng protest of Chinese authorities. No foreigner can be 
found who will state that Germany used her ownership of port 
and railway to discriminate against other nations. No Chinese 
can be found who will claim that this ownership was used to 
force the Chinese out of business, or to extend German eco- 
nomic rights beyond those definitely assigned her by treaty. 
Common sense should also teach even the highest paid propa- 
gandist in America that there is, from the standpoint of China, 
an immense distinction between a national menace located half 
way around the globe, and one within two days' sail jover an 
inland sea absolutely controlled by a foreign navy, especially 
as the remote nation has no other foothold and the nearby 
one already dominates additional territory of enormous strate- 
gic and economic value — namely, Manchuria. 

These facts bear upon the shadowy distinction between the 
Tsing-tao and the Shantung claim, as well as upon the solid 
distinction between German and Japanese occupancy. If there 
still seemed to be a thin wall between Japanese possession of 
the port of Tsing-tao and usurpation of Shantung, it was 
enough to stop off the train in Tslnan-fu to see the wall crumble. 
For the Japanese wireless and the barracks of the army of 
occupation are the first things that greet your eyes. Within 
a few hundred feet of the railway that connects Shanghai, via 
the important center of Tientsin, with the capital, Peking, you 
see Japanese soldiers on the nominally Chinese street, guarding 
their barracks. Then you learn that If you travel upon the 
ex-German railway towards Tsing-tao, you are ordered to show 
your passport as if you were entering a foreign country. And 
as you travel along the road (remembering that you are over 
two hundred miles from Tsing-tao) you find Japanese soldiers 
at every station, and several garrisons and barracks at Impor- 
tant towns on the line. Then you realize that at the shortest 

[II] 



possible notice, Japan could cut all communications between 
southern China (together with the rich Yangste region) and the 
capital, and with the aid of the Southern Manchurian Railway 
at the north of the capital, hold the entire coast and descend at 
its good pleasure upon Peking. 

You are then prepared to learn from eye-witnesses that when 
Japan made its Twenty-one Demands upon China, machine guns 
were actually in position at strategic points throughout Shan- 
tung, with trenches dug and sandbags placed. You know that 
the Japanese liberal spoke the truth, who told you, after a 
visit to China and his return to protest against the action of his 
government, that the Japanese already had such a military hold 
upon China that they could control the country within a week, 
after a minimum of fighting, if war should arise. You also 
realize the efficiency of official control of information and 
domestic propaganda as you recall that he also told you that 
these things were true at the time of his visit, under the Terauchi 
cabinet, but had been completely reversed by the present Hara 
ministry. For I have yet to find a single foreigner or Chinese 
who is conscious of any difference of policy, save as the end 
of the war has forced the necessity of caution, since other 
nations can now look China-wards as they could not during 
the war. 

An American can get an idea of the realities of the present 
tion If he imagines a foreign garrison and military wireless in 
Wilmington, with a railway from that point to a fortified sea- 
port controlled by the foreign power, at which the foreign na- 
tion can land, without resistance, troops as fast as they can be 
transported, and with bases of supply, munitions, food, uni- 
forms, etc., already located at Wilmington, at the sea-port and 
several places along the line. Reverse the directions from south 
to north, and Wilmington will stand for Tslnan-fu, Shanghai 
for New York, Nanking for Philadelphia with Peking standing 
for the seat of government at Washington, and Tientsin for 
Baltimore. Suppose in addition that the Pennsylvania road is 
the sole means of communication between Washington and the 
chief commercial and industrial centers, and you have the frame- 
work of the Shantung picture as it presents itself daily to the 
inhabitants of China. Upon second thought, however, the 
parallel is not quite accurate. You have to add that the same 

[12] 



foreign nation controls also all coast communications from, say, 
Raleigh southwards, with railway lines both to the nearby coast 
and to New Orleans. For (still reversing directions) this cor- 
responds to the position of Imperial Japan in Manchuria with 
its railways to Dairen and through Korea to a port twelve 
hours sail from a great military center in Japan proper. These 
are not remote possibilities nor vague prognostications. They 
are accomplished facts. 

Yet the facts give only the framework of the picture. What 
is actually going on within Shantung? One of the demands of 
the "postponed" group of the Twenty-one Demands was that 
Japan should supply military and police advisers to China. 
They are not so much postponed but that Japan enforced specific 
concessions from China during the war by diplomatic threats 
to reintroduce their discussion, or so postponed that Japanese 
advisers are not already installed in the police headquarters of 
the city of Tslnan, the capital city of Shantung of three hundred 
thousand population where the Provincial Assembly meets and 
all the Provincial officials reside. Within recent months the 
Japanese consul has taken a company of armed soldiers with 
him when he visited the Provincial Governor to make certain 
demands upon him, the visit being punctuated by an ostentatious 
surrounding of the Governor's yamen by these troops. Within 
the past few weeks, two hundred cavalry came to Tslnan and 
remained there while Japanese officials demanded of the Gover- 
nor drastic measures to suppress the boycott, while It was threat- 
ened to send Japanese troops to police the foreign settlement 
if the demand was not heeded. 

A former consul was Indiscreet enough to put Into writing 
that if the Chinese Governor did not stop the boycott and the 
students' movement by force if need be, he would take matters 
into his own hands. The chief tangible charge he brought 
against the Chinese as a basis of his demand for "protection" 
was that Chinese store-keepers actually refused to accept Japan- 
ese money In payment for goods, not ordinary Japanese 
money at that, but the military notes with which, so as 
to save drain upon the bullion reserves, the army of occupation 
Is paid. And all this, be it remembered, is more than two hun- 
dred miles from Tsing-tao and from eight to twelve months 
after the armistice. Today's paper reports a visit of Japanese 

[13] 



to the Governor to inform him that unless he should prevent 
a private theatrical performance from being given in Tsinan 
by the students, they would send their own forces into the set- 
tlement to protect themselves. And the utmost they might 
need protection from, was that the students were to give some 
plays designed to foster the boycott! 

Japanese troops overran the Province before they made any 
serious attempt to capture Tsing-tao. It is only a slight exag- 
geration to say that they "took" the Chinese Tsinan before 
they took the German Tsing-tao. Propaganda in America has 
justified this act on the ground that a German railway to the 
rear of Japanese forces would have been a menace. As there 
were no troops but only legal and diplomatic papers with which 
to attack the Japanese, it is a fair inference that the "menace" 
was located in Versailles rather than in Shantung, and concerned 
the danger of Chinese control of their own territory. Chinese 
have been arrested by Japanese gendarmes in Tsinan and sub- 
jected to a torturing third degree of the kind that Korea has 
made sickeningly familiar. The Japanese claim that the injuries 
were received while the men were resisting arrest. Consider- 
ing that there was no more legal ground for arrest than there 
would be if Japanese police arrested Americans in New York, 
almost anybody but the pacifist Chinese certainly would have 
resisted. But official hospital reports testify to bayonet wounds 
and the marks of flogging. In the interior where the Japanese 
had been disconcerted by the student propaganda they raided a 
High School, seized a school boy at random, and took him to 
a distant point and kept him locked up several days. When 
the Japanese consul at Tsinan was visited by Chinese officials 
in protest against these illegal arrests, the consul disclaimed 
all jurisdiction. The matter, he said, was wholly in the hands 
of the military authorities in Tsing-tao. His disclaimer was em- 
phasized by the fact that some of the kidnapped Chinese were 
taken to Tsing-tao for "trial." 

The matter of economic rights in relation to political domi- 
nation will be discussed later in this article. It is no 
pleasure for one with many warm friends in Japan, who has 
a great admiration for the Japanese people as distinct from the 
ruling mihtary and bureaucratic class, to report such facts as 
have been stated. One might almost say, one might positively 

[14] 



say from the standpoint of Japan itself, that the worst thing 
that can be charged against the policy of Japan in China for the 
last six years is its immeasurable stupidity. Na nation has ever 
misjudged the national psychology of another people as Japan 
has that of China. The alienation of China is widespread, deep, 
bitter. Even the most pessimistic of the Chinese who think that 
China is to undergo a complete economic and political domina- 
tion by Japan do not think it can last, even without outside inter- 
vention, more than half a century. 

Today, at the beginning of a new year, (1920) the boycott is 
much more complete and efficient than in the most tense days of 
last summer. Unfortunately, the Japanese policy seems to be un- 
der a truly Greek fate which drives it on. Concessions that would 
have produced a revulsion of feeling in favor of Japan a year 
ago will now merely salve the surface of the wound. What 
would have been welcomed even eight months ago would now 
be received with contempt. There is but one way in which 
Japan can now restore herself. It is nothing less than complete 
withdrawal from Shantung, with possibly a strictly commercial 
concession at Tsing-tao and a real, not a Manchurian. Open 
Door. 

According to the Japanese-owned newspapers published in 
Tsinan, the Japanese military commander in Tsing-tao recently 
made a speech to visiting journalists from Tokyo in which he 
said: "The suspicions of China cannot now be allayed merely 
by repeating that we have no territorial ambitions in China. We 
must attain complete economic domination of the Far East. But 
if Chino-Japanese relations do not improve, some third party will 
reap the benefit. Japanese residing in China incur the hatred of 
the Chinese. For they regard themselves as the proud citizens 
of a conquering country. When the Japanese go into partner- 
ship with the Chinese they manage In the greater number of 
cases to have the profits accrue to themselves. If friendship 
between China and Japan is to depend wholly upon the govern- 
ment it will come to nothing. Diplomatists, soldiers, merchants, 
journalists should repent the past. The change must be com- 
plete." But it will not be complete until the Japanese withdraw 
from Shantung leaving their nationals there upon the footing of 
other foreigners in China. 

[15] 



2. 



In discussing the return to China by Japan of a metaphysical 
sovereignty while economic rights are retained, I shall not repeat 
the details of German treaty rights as to the railway and the 
mines. The reader is assumed to be famihar with those facts. 
The Germen seizure was outrageous. It was a flagrant case of 
Might making Right. As von Buelow cynically but frankly told 
the Reichstag, while Germany did not intend to partition China, 
she also did not intend to be the passenger left behind in the 
station when the train started. Germany had the excuse of 
prior European aggressions, and in turn her usurpation was the 
precedent for further foreign rape. If judgments are made on 
a comparative basis, Japan is entitled to all of the white-washing 
that can be derived from the provocations of European im- 
perialistic powers, including those countries that in domestic 
policy are democratic. And every fairminded person will recog- 
nize that, leaving China out of the reckoning, Japan's proximity 
to China gives her aggressions the color of self-defence in a way 
that cannot be urged in behalf of any European power. 

It is possible to look at European aggressions in, say, Africa 
as incidents of a colonization movement. But no foreign policy 
in Asia can shelter itself behind any colonization plea. For 
continental Asia is, for practical purposes, India and China, 
representing two of the oldest civilizations of the globe and 
presenting two of its densest populations. If there is any such 
thing in truth as a philosophy of history with its own inner and 
inevitable logic, one may well shudder to think of what the 
closing acts of the drama of the intercourse of the West and 
East are to be. In any case, and with whatever comfort may 
be derived from the fact that the American continents have not 
taken part in the aggression and hence may act as a mediator 
to avert the final tragedy, residence in China forces upon one 
the realization that Asia is, after all, a large figure in the future 
reckoning of history. Asia is really here after all. It is not 
simply a symbol in western algebraic balances of trade. And in 
the future, so to speak, it Is going to be even more here, with 
its awakened national consciousness of about half the population 
of the whole globe. 

Let the agreements of France and Great Britain made with 



Japan during the war stand for the measure of western con- 
sciousness of the reality of only a small part of Asia, a conscious- 
ness generated by the patriotism of Japan backed by its powerful 
army and navy. The same agreement measures western un- 
consciousness of the reality of that part of Asia which lies with- 
in the confines of China. An even better measure of western 
unconsciousness may be found perhaps in such a trifling incident 
as this: — An Enghsh friend long resident in Shantung told me 
of writing indignantly home concerning the British part in the 
Shantung settlement. The reply came, complacently stating that 
Japanese ships did so much in the war that the Allies could not 
properly refuse to recognize Japan's claims. The secret agree- 
ments themselves hardly speak as eloquently for the absence of 
China from the average western consciousness. In saying that 
China and Asia are to be enormously significant figures in future 
reckonings, the spectre of a military Yellow Peril is not meant 
nor even the more credible spectre of an industrial Yellow Peril. 
But Asia has come to consciousness, and her consciousness of 
herself will soon be such a massive and persistent thing that it 
will force itself upon the reluctant consciousness of the west, 
< and lie heavily upon its conscience. And for this fact, China and 
the western world are indebted to Japan. 

These remarks are more relevant to a consideration of the 
relationship of economic and political rights in Shantung than 
they perhaps seem. For a moment's reflection will call to mind 
that all pohtical foreign aggression in China has been carried 
out for commercial and financial ends, and usually upon some 
economic pretext. As to the immediate part played by Japan 
in bringing about a consciousness which will from the present 
time completely change the relations of the western powers to 
China, let one little story testify. Some representatives of an 
English missionary board were making a tour of inspection 
through China. They went into an interior town in Shantung. 
They were received with extraordinary cordiality by the entire 
population. Some time afterwards some of their accompanying 
friends returned to the village and were received with equally 
surprising coldness. It came out upon inquiry that the in- 
habitants had first been moved by the rumor that these people 
were sent by the British government to secure the removal of 
the Japanese. Later they were moved by indignation that they 
had been disappointed. 

[17] 



It takes no forcing to see a symbol In this Incident. Part of 
it stands for the almost incredible ignorance which has rendered 
China so Impotent nationally speaking. The other part of it 
stands for the new spirit which has been aroused even among 
the common people in remote districts. Those who fear, or 
who pretend to fear, a new Boxer movement, or a definite gen- 
eral anti-foreign movement, are, I think, mistaken. The new 
consciousness goes much deeper. Foreign policies that fail to 
take It Into account and that think that relations with China 
can be conducted upon the old basis will find this new conscious- 
ness obtruding in the most unexpected and perplexing ways. 

One might fairly say, still speaking comparatively, that it is 
part of the bad luck of Japan that her proximity to China, and 
the opportunity the war gave her to outdo the aggressions of 
European powers, have made her the first victim of this dis- 
concerting change. Whatever the motives of the American 
Senators in completely disassociating the United States from the 
peace settlement as regards China, their action Is a permanent 
asset to China, not only In respect to Japan but with respect to 
all Chinese foreign relations. Just before our visit to Tslnan, 
the Shantung Provincial Assembly had passed a resolution of 
thanks to the American Senate. More significant is the fact 
that they passed another resolution to be cabled to the English 
Parliament, calling attention to the action of the American 
Senate and inviting similar action. China In general and 
Shantung In particular feels the reinforcement of an external 
approval. With this duplication, its national consciousness has 
as it were solidified. Japan Is simply the first object to be 
affected. 

The concrete working out of economic rights In Shantung 
will be Illustrated by a single case which will have to stand as 
typical. Po-shan is an interior mining village. The mines were 
not part of the German booty; they were Chinese owned. The 
Germans, whatever their ulterior aims, had made no attempt 
at dispossessing the Chinese. The mines, however, are at the 
end of a branch line of the new Japanese owned railway — 
owned by the government, not by a private corporation, and 
guarded by Japanese soldiers. Of the forty mines, the Japanese 
have worked their way. In only four years. Into all but four. 
Different methods are used. The simplest Is, of course, dis- 
crimination in the use of the railway for shipping. Downright 

[i8] 



refusal to furnish cars while competitors who accepted Japanese 
partners got them, is one method. Another more elaborate 
method is to send but one car when a large number is asked for, 
and then when it is too late to use cars, send the whole number 
asked for or even more, and then charge a large sum for 
demurrage in spite of the fact the mine no longer wants them 
or has cancelled the order. Redress there is none. 

Tsinan has no special foreign concessions. It is, however, a 
"treaty port" where nationals of all friendly powers can do 
business. But Po-shan is not even a treaty port. Legally speak- 
ing no foreigners can lease land or carry on any business there. 
Yet the Japanese have forced a settlement as large in area as 
the entire foreign settlement in the much larger town of Tsinan. 
A Chinese refused to lease land where the Japanese wished to 
relocate their railway station. Nothing happened to him directly. 
But merchants could not get shipping space, or receive goods by 
rail. Some of them were beaten up by thugs. After a time, they 
used their influence with their compatriot to lease his land. Im- 
mediately the persecutions ceased. Not all the land has been 
secured by threats or coercion; some has been leased directly 
by Chinese moved by high prices, in spite of the absence of any 
legal sanction. In addition, the Japanese have obtained control 
of the electric light works and some pottery factories, etc. 

Now even admitting that this is typical of the methods by 
which the Japanese plant themselves, a natural American re- 
action would be to say that, after all, the country is built up 
industrially by these enterprises, and that though the rights of 
some individuals may have been violated, there is nothing to 
make a national, much less an international fuss about. More 
or less unconsciously we translate foreign incidents into terms 
of our own experience and environment, and thus miss the 
entire point. Since America was largely developed by foreign 
capital to our own economic benefit and without political en- 
croachments, we lazily suppose some such separation of the 
economic and political to be possible in China. But it must be 
remembered that China is not an open country. Foreigners can 
lease land, carry on business, and manufacture only in accord 
with express treaty agreements. There are no such agreements 
in the cases typified by the Po-shan incident. We may pro- 
foundly disagree with the closed economic policy of China, or 
we may believe that under existing circumstances it represents 

[19] 



the part of prudence for her. That makes no difference. Given 
the frequent occurrence of such economic invasions, with the 
backing of soldiers of the Imperial Army, with the overt aid 
of the Imperial Railway, and ivith the refusal of Imperial offi- 
cials to intervene, there is clear evidence of the attitude and 
intention of the Japanese government in Shantung. 

Because the population of Shantung is directly confronted 
with an immense amount of just such evidence, it cannot take 
seriously the professions of vague diplomatic utterances. What 
foreign nation is going to intervene to enforce Chinese rights in 
such a case as Po-shan? Which one is going effectively to call 
the attention of Japan to such evidences of its failure to carry 
out its promise? Yet the accumulation of precisely such seem- 
ingly petty incidents, and not any single dramatic great wrong, 
will secure Japan's economic and political domination of 
Shantung. It is for this reason that foreigners resident in 
Shantung, no matter In what part, say that they see no sign 
whatever that Japan is going to get out; that, on the contrary, 
everything points to a determination to consolidate her position. 
How long ago was the Portsmouth treaty signed, and what 
were Its nominal pledges about evacuation of Manchurian 
territory? 

Not a month will pass without something happening which 
will give a pretext for delay, and for making the surrender of 
Shantung conditional upon this, that and the other thing. Mean- 
time the penetration of Shantung by means of railway discrimi- 
nation, railway military guards, continual nibblings here and 
there, will be going on. It would make the chapter too long to 
speak of the part played by manipulation of finance In achieving 
this process of attrition of sovereignty. Two incidents must 
suffice. During the war, Japanese traders with the connivance 
of their government gathered up Immense amounts of copper 
cash from Shantung and shipped It to Japan against the protests 
of the Chinese government. What does sovereignty amount to 
when a country cannot control even its own currency system? 
In Manchuria the Japanese have forced the Introduction of 
several hundred million dollars of paper currency, nominally, 
of course, based on a gold reserve. These notes are redeemable, 
however, only In Japan proper. And there Is a law in Japan 
forbidding the exportation of gold. And there you are. 

Japan itself has recently afforded an object lesson in the actual 

[20] 



connection of economic and political rights in China. It is so 
beautifully complete a demonstration that it was surely un- 
conscious. Within the last two weeks, Mr. Obata, the Japanese 
minister in Peking, has waited upon the government with a 
memorandum saying that the Foochow incident was the cul- 
minating result of the boycott; that if the boycott continues, 
a series of such incidents is to be apprehended, saying that the 
situation has become "intolerable" for Japan, and disavowing 
all responsibility for further consequences unless the govern- 
ment makes a serious effort to stop the boycott. Japan then 
immediately makes certain specific demands. China must stop 
the circulation of handbills, the holding of meetings to urge the 
boycott, the destruction of Japanese goods that have become 
Chinese property — none have been destroyed that are Japanese 
owned. Volumes could not say more as to the real conception 
of Japan of the connection between the economic and the political 
relations of the two countries. Surely the pale ghost of 
"Sovereignty" smiled ironically as he read this official note. 
President Wilson after having made in the case of Shantung a 
sharp and complete separation o£ economic and political rights, 
also said that a nation boycotted is within sight of surrender. 
Disassociation of words from acts has gone so far in his case 
that he will hardly be able to see the meaning of Mr. Obata's 
communication. The American sense of humor and fair-play 
may however be counted upon to get its point. 

January, 1920. 



Ill 



Hinterlands in China 

NE of the two Presidents of China — it is unnecessary 
to specify which — recently stated that a renewal of 
the Anglo-Japanese alliance meant a partition of 
China. In this division, Japan would take the north and Great 
Britain the south. Probably the remark was not meant to be 
taken literally in the sense of formal conquest or annexation, 
but rather symbolically with reference to the tendency of poli- 

[21] 




cies and events. Even so, the statement will appear exagger- 
ated or wild to persons outside of China, who either believe 
that the Open Door policy is now irrevocably established or 
that Japan is the only foreign Power which China has to fear. 
But a recent .visit to the south revealed that in that section, 
especially in Canton, the British occupy much the same position 
of suspicion and dread which is held by the Japanese in the 
north. 

Upon the negative side, the Japanese menace is negligible 
in the province of Kwantung, in which Canton is situated. 
There are said to be more Americans in Canton than Japan- 
ese, and the American colony is not extensive. Upon the posi- 
tive side the history of the Cassell collieries contract is instruc- 
tive. It illustrates the cause of the popular attitude toward the 
British, and quite possibly explains the bitterness in the remark 
quoted;. The contract is noteworthy from whatever stand- 
point it is viewed, whether that of time, of the conditions it 
contains or of the circumstances which accompany it. 

Premising that the contract delivers to a British company 
a monopoly of the rich coal deposits of the province for a 
period of ninety years and — quite incidentally of course — the 
right to use all means of transportation, water or rail, wharves 
and ports now in existence, and also to "construct, manage, 
superintend and work other roads, railways waterways as may 
be deemed advisable" — which reads like a monopoly of all 
further transportation facilities of the province — first take up 
the time of the making of the contract. It was drawn in April, 
1920 and confirmed a few months later. It was made, 
of course, with the authorities of the Kwantung province, sub- 
ject to confirmation at Peking. During this period, Kwantung 
province was governed by military carpet-baggers from the 
neighboring province of Kwangsei, which was practically alone 
of the southern provinces allied with the northern government, 
then under the control of the Anfu party. It was matter of 
common knowledge that the people of Canton and of the prov- 
ince were bitterly hostile to this outside control and submitted 
to it only because of military coercion. Civil strife for the ex- 
pulsion of the outsiders was already going on, continually gain- 
ing headway, and a few months later the Kwangsei troops were 
defeated and expelled from the province by the forces of Gen- 

[22] 



eral Chen, now the civil governor of Kwantung, who received 
a triumphal ovation upon his entrance into Canton. At this 
time the present native government was established, a change 
which made possible the return of Sun Yat Sen and his followers 
from their exile in Shanghai. It is evident, then, that the col- 
lieries contract giving away the natural resources of the people 
of the province, was knowingly made by a British company 
with a government which no more represented the people of the 
province than the military government of Germany represented 
the people of Belgium during the war. 

As to the terms of the contract, the statement that it gave 
the British company a monopoly of all the coal mines in the 
province, was not literally accurate. Verbally, twenty-two dis- 
tricts are enumerated. But these are the districts along the 
lines of the only railways in the province and the only ones soon 
to be built, Including the as yet uncompleted Hankow-Canton 
railway. Possibly this fact accounts for the anxiety of the 
British partners In the Consortium that the completion of this 
line be the first undertaking financed by the Consortium. The 
document also includes what is perhaps a novelty In legal docu- 
ments having such a momentous economic importance, namely, 
the words "etc." after the districts enumerated by name. 

For this concession, the British syndicate agreed to pay the 
provincial government the sum of $1,000,000 (silver of 
course). This million dollars Is to bear six per cent Interest 
to the company, and capital and interest are to be paid back 
to the company by the provincial government out of the divi- 
dends (If any) It Is to receive. The nature of these "divi- 
dends" Is set forth in an article which should receive the care- 
ful attention of promoters elsewhere as a model of the possi- 
bilities of exploiting contracts. The ten million capital is di- 
vided equally into "A" shares and "B" shares. The "A" shares 
go unreservedly to the directors of the company, and three mil- 
lions of the "B" shares are to be allotted by the directors of 
the company at their discretion. The other two million are 
again divided into equal portions, one portion representing the 
sum advanced by the company to the province and to be paid 
back as just specified, while the other million — one-tenth of the 
capitalization — is to be a trust fund the dividends of which are 
to go for the "benefit of the poor people of the province" and 

[23] 



for an educational fund for the province. But before any divi- 
dends are paid upon the "B" shares, eight per cent dividends 
are to be paid upon the "A" shares and a dollar a ton royalty 
upon all coal mined. Those having any familiarity with the 
coal business with its usual royalty of about ten cents a ton can 
easily calcuate the splendid prospects of the "poor people" and 
the schools, prospects which represent the total return to the 
provinces of a concession of untold worth. The contract also 
guarantees to the company the assistance of the provincial gov- 
ernment in expropriating the owners of all coal mines which 
have been granted to other companies but not yet worked. 
These technical details make dry reading, but they throw light 
upon the spirit with which the British company undertook Its 
predatory negotiations with a government renounced by the 
people It professed to govern. In comparison with the rela- 
tively crude methods of Japan in Shantung, they show the ad- 
vantages of wide business experience. 

As for the circumstances and context which give added men- 
ace to the contract, the following facts are significant. Hong 
Kong, a British crown colony, lies directly opposite the river 
upon which Canton Is situated. It is the port of export and 
Import for the vast districts served by the mines and railways 
of the province. It is unnecessary to point out the hold upon 
all economic development which is given through a monopolistic 
control of coal. It is hardly too much to say that the enforce- 
ment of the contract would enable British interests in Hong 
Kong to control the entire industrial development of the most 
flourishing of the provinces of China. It would be a compara- 
tively easy and Inexpensive matter to provide the main land 
with a first class modern harbor and port near Canton. But 
such a port would tend to reduce the assets of Hong Kong to 
the possession of the most beautiful scenery in the world. There 
is already fear that a new harbor will be built. Many persons 
think that the concession of building such railways etc., "as 
are deemed advisable for the purpose of the business of the 
company and to improve those now existing" Is the object of 
the contract, even more than the coal monopoly. For the Brit- 
ish already own a considerable part of the mainland. Including 
part of the railway connecting the littoral with Canton. By 
building a cross-cut from the British owned portion of this rail- 

[24] 



way to the Hankow-Canton line, the latter would become vir- 
tually the Hankow-Hong Kong line, and Canton would be a 
way-station. With the advantages thus secured, the project 
for building a new port could be indefinitely blocked. 

During the period in which the contract was being secured, 
a congress of British Chambers of Commerce was held in 
Shanghai. Resolutions were passed in favor of abolishing 
henceforth the whole principle of special nationalistic conces- 
sions, and of cooperating with the Chinese for the upbuilding 
of China. At the close of the meeting the Chairman announced 
that a new era for China had finally dawned. All of the Brit- 
ish newspapers in China lauded the wise action of the Chambers. 
At the same time, Mr. Lamont was in Peking, and was setting 
forth that the object of the Consortium was the abolition of 
further concessions, and the uniting of the financial resources 
of the banks in the Consortium for the economic development 
of China itself. By an ironical coincidence, the Hong Kong- 
Shanghai Bank, which is the financial power behind the contract 
and the new company, is the leading British partner in the 
Consortium. It is difficult to see how the British can hence- 
forth accuse the Japanese of bad faith if any of the banking 
interests of that country should enter upon independent ne- 
gotiations with any government in China. 

By the time the scene of action was transferred to Peking 
In order to secure the confirmation of the central government, 
the Anfu regime was no more, and as yet no confirmation has 
been secured. The new government at Canton has declined to 
recognize the contract as having any validity. An official of 
the Hong Kong government has told an official of the Canton 
government that the Hong Kong government stands behind the 
enforcement of the contract, and that Kwantung province is a 
British Hinterland. Within the last few weeks the Governor 
of Hong Kong and a leading Chinese banker of Hong Kong 
who is a British subject have visited Peking. Rumors were rife 
in the south as to the object of the visit. British sources pub- 
lished the report that one object was to return Weihaiwei to 
China — in case Peking agreed to turn over more of the Kwan- 
tung mainland to Hong Kong as a quid pro quo. Chinese opin- 
ion In the south was that one main object was to secure the 
Peking confirmation of the Cassell contract, in which case 

[25] 



$900,000 more would be forthcoming, $100,000 having been 
paid down when the contract was signed with the provincial 
government. Peking does not recognize the present Canton 
government but regards it as an outlaw. The crowd that 
signed the contract is still in control of the neighboring prov- 
ince of Kwangsei and they are relied upon by the north to effect 
the military subjugation of the seceded province. Fighting 
has already, indeed, begun, but the Kwangsei militarists are 
badly in need £)f money; if Peking ratifies the contract, a large 
part of the funds will be paid over to them — all that isn't lost 
by the wayside to the northern militarists.* Meantime British 
news agencies keep up a constant circulation of reports tending 
to discredit the Kwantung government, although all Impartial 
observers on the spot regard It as altogether the most promis- 
ing one in China. 

These considerations not only throw light on some of the diffi- 
culties of the functioning of the Consortium, but they give an In- 
dlspenslble background for judging the actual effect of the renew- 
al of the Anglo-Japanese alliance. By force of circumstances each 
government, even against its own wish, will be compelled to wink 
at the predatory policies of the other; and the tendency will be to 
create a division of spheres of influence between the north and 
south in order to avoid more direct conflicts. The English Hberals 
who stand for the renewal of the alliance on the ground that 
it will enable England to exercise a check on Japanese policies, 
are more naive than was Mr. Wilson with his belief in the sep- 
aration of the economic and political control of Shantung. 

It cannot be too often repeated that the real point of friction 
between the United States and Japan is not in California but 
in China. It is silly — unless it is calculated — for English au- 
thorities to keep repeating that under no circumstances does 
the alliance mean that Great Britain would support Japan in 
a war with the United States. The day the aUIance Is renewed, 
the hands of the militarists In Japan will be strengthened and 
the hands of the liberals — already weak enough — be still fur- 
ther weakened. In consequence, all the sources of friction In 
China between the United States and Japan will be Intensified. 
I do not believe In the predicted war. But should it come, the 



* Since the text was written, the newspapers have stated that the Peking Gov- 
ernment has officially refused to validate the agreement. 

[26] 



first act of Japan — so everyone in China believes — will be to 
seize the ports of northern China and its railways in order to 
make sure of an uninterrupted supply of food and raw ma- 
terials. The act would be justified as necessary to national 
existence. Great Britain in alliance with Japan would be in 
no position to protest in anything but the most perfunctory 
way. The guarantee of such abstinence would be for Japan 
the next best thing to open naval and financial support. With- 
out the guarantee they would not dare the seizure of Chinese 
ports. In recent years diplomatists have shown themselves ca- 
pable of unlimited stupidity. But it is not possible that the 
men in the British Foreign Office are not aware of these ele- 
mentary facts. If they renew the alliance they knowingly take 
the responsibility for the consequences. 
May 24, 1921. 



IV 



A Political Upheaval in China 

EVEN in America we have heard of one Chinese revolu- 
tion, that which thrust the Manchu dynasty from the 
throne. The visitor in China gets used to casual refer- 
ences to the second revolution, that which frustrated Yuan Shi 
Kai's aspirations to be emperor, and the third, the defeat in 19 17 
of the abortive attempt to put the Manchu boy emperor back 
into power. And within the last few weeks the (September 1920) 
fourth upheaval has taken place. It may not be dignified by 
the name of the fourth revolution, for the head of the state 
has not been changed by it. But as a manifestation of the 
forces that shape Chinese political events, for evil and for 
good, perhaps this last disturbance surpasses the last two "revo- 
lutions" in significance. 

Chinese politics in detail are highly complicated, a mess of 
personalities and factions whose oscillations no one can follow 
who does not know a multitude of personal, family and pro- 
vincial histories. But occasionally something happens which 
simplifies the tangle. Definite outlines frame themselves out 
of the swirling criss-cross of strife, intrigue and ambition. So, 

[27] 



at present, the complete collapse of the Anfu clique which 
owned the central government for two years marks the end of 
that union of internal militarism and Japanese foreign influence 
which was, for China, the most marked fruit of the war. When 
China entered the war a "War Participation" army was formed. 
It never participated; probably it was never meant to. But 
its formation threw power wholly into the hands of the mili- 
tary clique, as against the civilian constitutionalists. And in 
return for concessions, secret agreements relating to Manchuria, 
Shantung, new railways, etc., Japan supplied money, munitions, 
instructors for the army and a benevolent supervision of for- 
eign and domestic politics. The war came to an unexpected 
and untimely end, but by this time the offspring of the marriage 
of the militarism of Yuan Shi Kai and Japanese money and 
influence was a lusty youth. Bolshevism was induced to take 
the place of Germany as a menace requiring the keeping up 
of the army, and loans and teachers. Mongolia was persuaded 
to cut her strenuous ties with Russia, to renounce her inde- 
pendence and come again under Chinese sovereignty. 

The army and its Japanese support and instruction was, ac- 
cordingly, continued. In place of the "War Participation" 
army appeared the "Frontier Defense" army. Marshal Tuan, 
the head of the military party, remained the nominal political 
power behind the presidential chair, and General Hsu (com- 
monly known as little Hsu, in distinction from old Hsu, the 
president) was the energetic manager of the Mongolian ad- 
venture which, by a happy coincidence, required a bank, land 
development companies and railway schemes, as well as an 
army. About this military centre as a nucleus gathered the 
vultures who fed on the carrion. This flock took the name of 
the Anfu Club. It did not control the entire cabinet, but to 
it belonged the Minister of Justice, who manipulated the po- 
lice and the courts, persecuted the students, suppressed liberal 
journals and imprisoned inconvenient critics. And the Club 
owned the ministers of finance and communications, the two 
cabinet places that dispense revenues, give out jobs and make 
loans. It also regulated the distribution of intelligence by mail 
and telegraph. The reign of corruption and despotic ineffi- 
ciency, tempered only by the student revolt, set in. In two 
years the Anfu Club got away with two hundred millions of 

[28] 



public funds directly, to say nothing of what was wasted by 
incompetency and upon the army. The Allies had set out to 
get China into the war. They succeeded in getting Japan into 
control of Peking and getting China, politically speaking, into 
a seemingly hopeless state of corruption and confusion. 

The militaristic or Pei-Yang party was, however, divided in- 
to two factions, each called after a province. The Anwhei 
party gathered about little Hsu and was almost identical with 
the Anfus. The Chili faction had been obliged, so far as Peking 
was concerned, to content itself with such leavings as the Anfu 
Club tossed to it. Apparently it was hopelessly weaker than 
its rival, although Tuan, who was personally honest and above 
financial scandal, was supported by both factions and was the 
head of both. About three months ago there were a few signs 
that, while the Anfu Club had been entrenching itself in Peking, 
the rival faction had been quietly establishing itself in the 
provinces. A league of Eight Tuchuns (mihtary governors of 
the provinces) came to the assistance of the president against 
some unusually strong pressure from the Anfu Club. In spite 
of the fact that the military governor of the three Manchurian 
provinces, Chang Tso Lin, popularly known as the Emperor 
of Manchuria, lined up with this league, practically nobody ex- 
pected anything except some manoeevering to get a larger share 
of the spoils. 

But late in June the president invited Chang Tso Lin to 
Peking. The latter saw Tuan, told him that he was surrounded 
by evil advisers, demanded that he cut loose from little Hsu 
and the Anfu Club, and declared open war upon little Hsu — 
the two had long and notoriously been bitter enemies. Even 
then people had great difficulty in believing that anything would 
happen except another Chinese compromise. The president 
was known to be sympathetic upon the whole with the Chili 
faction, but the president, if not a typical Chinese, is at least 
typical of a certain kind of Chinese mandarin, non-resistant, 
compromising, conciliating, procrastinating, covering up, evad- 
ing issues, face-saving. But finally something happened. A 
mandate was issued dismissing little Hsu from office, military 
and civil, dissolving the frontier defense corps as such, and 
bringing It under the control of the Ministry of War (usually 
armies In China belong to some general or Tuchun, not to the 

[29] 



country). For almost forty-eight hours it was thought that 
Tuan had consented to sacrifice little Hsu and that the latter 
would submit at least temporarily. Then with equally sensa- 
tional abruptness Tuan brought pressure to bear on the presi- 
dent. The latter was appointed head of a national defense 
army, and rewards were issued for the heads of the chiefs of 
the Chili faction, nothing, however, being said about Chang 
Tso Lin, who had meanwhile returned to Mukden and who 
still professed allegiance to Tuan. Troops were mobilized; 
there was a rush of officials and of the wealthy to the conces- 
sions of Tientsin and to the hotels of the legation quarter. 

This sketch is not meant as history, but simply as an indi- 
cation of the forces at work. Hence it is enough to say that 
two weeks after Tuan and little Hsu had intimidated the presi- 
dent and proclaimed themselves the saviors of the Republic, 
they were in hiding, their enemies of the Chili party were in 
complete control of Peking, and rewards from fifty thousand 
dollars down were offered for the arrest of little Hsu, the ex- 
ministers of justice, finance and communications, and other lead- 
ers of the Anfu Club. The political turnover was as complete 
as it was sensational. The seemingly impregnable masters of 
China were impotent fugitives. The carefully built up Anfu 
Club, with its military, financial and foreign support, had crum- 
bled and fallen. No country at any time has ever seen a po- 
litical upheaval more s.udden and more thoroughgoing. It was 
not so much a defeat as a dissolution like that of death, a total 
disappearance, an evaporation. 

Corruption had worked inward, as it has a way of doing. 
Japanese-bought munitions would not explode; quartermasters 
vanished with the funds with which stores were to be bought; 
troops went without anything to eat for two or three days; 
large numbers, including the larger part of one division, went 
over to the enemy en masse; those who did not desert had no 
heart for fighting and ran away or surrendered on the slightest 
provocation, saying they were willing to fight for their country 
but saw no reason why they should fight for a faction, especially 
a faction that had been selling the country to a foreign nation. 
In the manner of the defeat of the Anfu clique at the height 
of its supremacy, rather than in the mere fact of its defeat, lies 
the credit side of the Chinese political balance sheet. It is a strik- 

[30] 



ing exhibition of the oldest and best faith of the Chinese — the 
power of moral considerations. Public opinion, even that of 
the coolie on the street, was wholly against the Anfu party. 
It went down not so much because of the strength of the other 
side as because of its own rottenness. 

So far the results are to all appearances negative. The most 
marked is the disappearance of Japanese prestige. As one of 
the leading men in the War Office said: "For over a year 
now the people have been strongly opposed to the Japanese 
government on account of Shantung. But now even the gen- 
erals do not care for Japan any more." It is hardly logical to 
take the easy collapse of the Japanese-supported Anfu party as 
a proof of the weakness of Japan, but prestige is always a 
matter of feeling rather than of logic. Many who were in- 
timidated to the point of hypnotism by the idea of the ir- 
resistible power of Japan are now freely laughing at the in- 
efficiency of Japanese leadership. It would not be safe to pre- 
dict that Japan will not come back as a force to be reckoned 
with in the internal as well as external politics of China, but 
it is safe to say that never again will Japan figure as superman 
to China. And such a negation is after all a positive result. 

And so in its way is the overthrow of the Anwhei faction of 
the militarist party. The Chinese liberals do not feel very 
optimistic about the immediate outcome. They have mostly 
given up the idea that the country can be reformed by political 
means. They are sceptical about the possibility of reforming 
even politics until a new generation comes on the scene. They 
are now putting their faith in education and in social changes 
which will take some years to consummate themselves visibly. 
The self-styled southern republican constitutional party has not 
shown itself in much better light than the northern militarist 
party. In fact, its old leader Sun Yat Sen now cuts one of the 
most ridiculous figures in China, as shortly before this upheaval 
he had definitely aligned himself with Tuan and little Hsu.* 



* This was written of course several mionths before Sun Yat Sen was rein- 
stated in control of Canton by the successful revolt of his local adherents against 
the southern militarists who had usurped power and driven out Sun Yat Sen and 
his followers. But up to the time when I left China, in July of tliis year, it was 
true t^Pt the liberals of northern and central China who were bitterly opposed to 
the Peking Govrenment, did not look to the Southern Government with much hope. 
The common attitude was a "plague upon both of your houses" and a desire for 
a new start. The conflict between North and South looms much larger in the 
United States than it did in China. 

[31] 



This does not mean, however, that democratic opinion thinks 
nothing has been gained. The demonstration of the inherent 
weakness of corrupt militarism will itself prevent the develop- 
ment of any militarism as complete as that of the Anfus. As 
one Chinese gentleman said to me: "When Yuan Shi Kai was 
overthrown, the tiger killed the lion. Now a snake has killed 
the tiger. No matter how vicious the snake may become, some 
smaller animal will be able to kill him, and his life will be 
shorter than that of either lion or tiger." In short, each suc- 
cessive upheaval brings nearer the day when civilian supremacy 
will be established. This result will be achieved partly because 
of the repeated demonstrations of the uncongeniality of military 
despotism to the Chinese spirit, and partly because with every 
passing year education will have done its work. Suppressed 
liberal papers are coming to life, while over twenty Anfu sub- 
sidized newspapers and two subsidized news agencies have gone 
out of being. The soldiers, including many officers in the An- 
whei army, clearly show the effects of student propaganda. 
And it is worth while to note down the name of one of the 
leaders on the victorious side, the only one whose troops did 
any particular fighting, and that against great odds in num- 
bers. The name is Wu Pei Fu. He at least has not fought 
for the Chili faction against the Anwhei faction. He has pro- 
claimed from the first that he was fighting to rid the country of 
military control of civil government, and against traitors who 
would sell their country to foreigners. He has come out 
strongly for a new popular assembly, to form a new constitu- 
tion and to unite the country. And although Chang Tso Lin 
has remarked that Wu Pei Fu as a military subordinate could 
not be expected to intervene in politics, he has not as yet found 
it convenient to oppose the demand for a popular assembly. 
Meanwhile the liberals are organizing their forces, hardly ex-' 
pecting to win a victory, but resolved, win or lose, to take ad- 
vantage of the opportunity to carry further the education of 
the Chinese people in the meaning of democracy. 

August, 1920. 



[S!!] 



Divided China 



IN January 1920 the Peking government Issued an 
edict proclaiming the unification of China. On May 
5 th Sun Yat Sen was formally inaugurated in Canton 
as president of all China. Thus China has within six months 
been twice unified, once from the northern standpoint and once 
from the southern. Each act of "unification" is in fact a sym- 
bol of the division of China, a division expressing differences 
of language, temperament, history, and political policy as well 
as of geography, persons and factions. This division has been 
one of the outstanding facts of Chinese history since the over- 
throw of the Manchus ten years ago and it has manifested itself 
in Intermittent civil war. Yet there are two other statements 
which are equally true, although they flatly contradict each 
other and the one just made. One statement is that so far as 
the people of China are concerned there is no real division on 
geographical lines, but only the common division occurring ev- 
erywhere between conservatives and progressives. The other 
is that Instead of two divisions in China, there are at least 
five, two parties in both the north and south, and another 
In the central or Yangtse region,* each one of the five spHt- 
ting up again m.ore or less on factional and provincial lines. 
And so far as the future is concerned, probably this last state- 
ment is the most significant of the three. That all three state- 
ments are true Is what makes Chinese politics so difficult to un- 
derstand even in their larger features. 

By the good fortune of circumstances we were in Canton 
when the inauguration occurred. Peking and Canton are a 
long way apart In more than distance. There is little exchange 
of actual news between the two places; what filters through 
Into either city and gets published consists mostly of rumors 



* Since the writing of this and the former chapter there are some signs that 
Wu Pei Fu wants to set up in control of the middle districts. 

[33] 



tending to discredit the other city. In Canton, the monarchy 
is constantly being restored in Peking; and in Peking, Canton 
is Bolshevized at least once a week, while every other week 
open war breaks out between the adherents of Sun Yat Sen, and 
General Chen Kwang Ming, the civil governor of the province. 
There is nothing to give the impression — even in circles which 
accept the Peking government only as an evil necessity — that 
the pretensions of Sun Yat Sen represent anything more than 
the desires of a small and discredited group to get some slight 
power for themselves at the expense of national unity. Even 
in Fuklen, the province next north of Kwantung, one found lit- 
tle but gossip whose effect was to minimize the importance of 
the southern government. In foreign circles in the north as 
well as in liberal Chinese circles upon the whole, the feeling is 
general that bad as the de facto Peking government may be, it 
represents the cause of national unity, while the southern gov- 
ernment represents a perpetuation of that division of China 
which makes her weak and which offers the standing invitation 
to foreign Intrigue and aggression. Only occasionally during 
the last few months has some returned traveller timidly ad- 
vanced the opinion that we had the "wrong dope" on the south, 
and that they were really trying "to do something down there." 
Consequently there was little preparation on my part for the 
spectacle afforded in Canton during the week of May 5th. 
This was the only demonstration I have seen in China during 
the last two years which gave any evidence of being a spon- 
taneous popular movement. New Yorkers are accustomed to 
crowds, processions, street decorations and accompanying en- 
thusiasm. I doubt if New York has ever seen a demonstration 
which surpassed that of Canton in size, noise, color or spon- 
taneity — In spite of tropical rains. The country people flocked 
in in such masses, that, being unable to find accommodation 
even in the river boats, they kept up a parade all night. Guilds 
and localities which were not able to get a place in the regular 
procession organized minor ones on their own account on the 
day before and after the official demonstration. Making all pos- 
sible allowance for the intensity of Cantonese local loyalty and 
the fact that they might be celebrating a Cantonese affair rather 
than a principle, the scene was sufficiently Impressive to revise 
one's preconceived ideas and to make one try to find out what 

[34] 



It is that gives the southern movement its vitality. 

A demonstration may be popular and still be superficial in 
significance. However one found foreigners on the ground — 
at least Americans — saying that in the last few months the 
men In power in Canton were the only officials in China who 
were actually doing something for the people instead of filling 
their own pockets and magnifying their personal power. Even 
the northern newspapers had not entirely omitted reference to 
the suppression of licensed gambling. On the spot one learned 
that this suppression was not only genuine and thorough, but 
that it meant a renunciation of an annual revenue of nearly 
ten million dollars on the part of a government whose chief 
difficulty Is financial, and where — apart from motives of per- 
sonal squeeze — It would have been easy to argue that at least 
temporarily the end justified the means in retaining this source 
of revenue. English papers throughout China have given 
much praise to the government of Hong Kong because it has 
cut down Its opium revenue from eight to four millions an- 
nually with the plan for ultimate extinction. Yet Hong Kong 
Is prosperous. It has not been touched by civil war, and It only 
needs revenue for ordinary civil purposes, not as a means of 
maintaining Its existence In a crisis. 

Under the circumstances, the action of the southern govern- 
ment was hardly less than heroic. This renunciation Is the 
most sensational act of the Canton government, but one soon 
learns that it is the accompaniment of a considerable number 
of constructive administrative undertakings. Among the most 
notable are attempts to reform the local magistracies through- 
out the province, the establishment of municipal government in 
Canton — something new In China where local officials are all 
centrally appointed and controlled — based upon the American 
Commission plan, and directed by graduates of schools of po- 
litical science In the United States; plans for Introducing local 
self-government throughout the province; a scheme for intro- 
duction of universal primary education in Canton to be com- 
pleted in three steps. 

These reforms are provincial and local. They are part of 
a general movement against centralization and toward local au- 
tonomy which is gaining headway all over China, a protest 
against the appointment of officials from Peking and the man- 

[35] 



agement of local affairs in the interests of factions — and pocket- 
books — whose chief interest in local affairs is what can be ex- 
tracted in the way of profit. For the only analogue of pro- 
vincial government in China at the present time is the carpet 
bag government of the south in the days following our civil 
war. These things explain the restiveness of the country, in- 
cluding central as well as southern provinces, under Peking 
domination. But they do not explain the setting up of a new 
national, or federal government, with the election of Mr. Sun 
Yat Sen as its president. To understand this event it is neces- 
sary to go back into history. 

In June, 19 17, the parliament in Peking was about to adopt 
a constitution. The parliament was controlled by leaders of the 
old revolutionary party who had been at loggerheads with Yuan 
and with the executive generally. The latter accused them of 
being obstructionists, wasting time in discussing and theorizing 
when the country needed action. Japan had changed her tactics 
regarding the participation of China in the war, and having got 
her position established through the Twenty-one Demands, saw 
a way of controlling Chinese arsenals and virtually amalgamat- 
ing the Chinese armies with her own through supervising China's 
entrance into the war. The British and French were pressing 
desperately for the same end. Parliament was slow to act, and 
Tang Shao Yi, Sun Yat Sen and other southern leaders were 
averse, since they regarded the war as none of China's business 
and were upon the whole more anti-British than anti-German — 
a fact which partly accounts for the share of British journals in 
the present press propaganda against the Canton government. 
But what brought matters to a head was the fact that the con- 
stitution which was about to be adopted eliminated the military 
governors or tuchuns of the provinces, ajid restored the supre- 
macy of civil authority which had been destroyed by Yuan Shi 
Kai, in addition to introducing a policy of decentralization. 
Coached by members of the so-called progressive party which 
claimed to be constitutionalist and which had a factionalist in- 
terest in overthrowing the revolutionaries who controlled the 
legislative branch if not the executive, the military governors 
demanded that the president suspend parliament and dismiss 
the legislators. This demand was more than passively supported 
by all the Allied diplomats in Peking with the honorable cxcep- 

[36] 



tion of the American legation. The president weakly yielded 
and issued an edict dispelling parliament, virtually admitting in 
the document the illegality of his action. Less than a month 
afterwards he was a refugee in the Dutch legation on account 
of the farce of monarchical restoration staged by Chang Shun 
— who at the present time is again coming to the front in the 
north as adjutant to the plans of Chang Tso Lin, the present 
"strong man" of China. Later, elections were held and a new 
parliament elected. This parliament has been functioning as 
the legislature of China at Peking and elected the president, 
Hsu Shi Chang, the head of the government recognized by the 
foreign Powers — in short it is the Chinese government from an 
international standpoint, the Peking government from a do- 
mestic standpoint. 

The revolutionary members of the old parliament never recog- 
nized the legality of their dispersal, and consequently refused to 
admit the legal status of the new parliament, called by them the 
bogus parliament, and of the president elected by it, especially 
as the new legislative body was not elected according to the 
rules laid down by the constitution. Under the lead of some of 
the old members, the old parliament, called by its opponents the 
defunct parliament, has led an intermittent existence ever since. 
Claiming to be the sole authentic constitutional body of China, 
it finally elected Dr. Sun president of China and thus prepared 
the act of the fifth of May, already reported. 

Such is the technical and formal background of the present 
southern government. Its attack upon the legality of the Peking 
government is doubtless technically justified. But for various 
reasons its own positive status is open to equally grave doubts. 
The terms "bogus" and "defunct," so freely cast at each other, 
both seem to an outsider to be justified. It is less necessary to 
go into the reasons which appear to invalidate the position of the 
southern parliament because of the belated character of its final 
action. A protest which waits four years to assert itself in posi- 
tive action is confronted not with legal technicalities but with 
accomplished facts. In my opinion, legality for legality, the 
southern government has a bare shade the better of the technical 
argument. But in the face of a government which has foreign 
recognition and which has maintained itself after a fashion for 
four years, a legal shadow is a precarious poHtical basis. It is 

[37] 



wiser to regard the southern government as a revolutionary gov- 
ernment, which in addition to the prestige of continuing the 
revolutionary movement of ten years ago has also a considerable 
sentimental asset as a protest of constitutionalism against the 
military usurpations of the Peking government. 

It Is an open secret that the southern movement has not re- 
ceived the undivided support of all the forces present in Canton 
which are opposed to the northern government. Tang Shao Yi, 
for example, was notable for his absence at the time of the In- 
auguration, having found it convenient to visit the graves of 
his ancestors at that time. The provincial governor. General 
Chen Kwang Ming, was In favor of confining efforts to the 
establishment of provincial autonomy and the encouragement 
of similar movements in other provinces, looking forward to an 
eventual federal, or confederated, government of at least all 
the provinces south of the Yangtse. Many of his generals 
wanted to postpone action until Kwantung province had made a 
military alliance with the generals in the other southwestern 
provinces, so as to be able to resist the north should the latter 
undertake a military expedition. Others thought the technical 
legal argument for .the new move was being overworked, and 
while having no objections to an out and out revolutionary 
movement against Peking, thought that the time for it had not 
yet come. They are counting on Chang Tso Lin's attempting 
a monarchical restoration and think that the popular revulsion 
against that move would create the opportune time for such a 
movement as has now been prematurely undertaken. However 
in spite of reports of open strife freely circulated by British and 
Peking government newspapers, most of the opposition elements 
are now loyally suppressing their opposition and supporting the 
government of Sun Yat Sen. A compromise has been arranged 
by which the federal government will confine its attention to 
foreign affairs, leaving provincial matters wholly in the hands 
of Governor Chen and his adherents. There is still room for 
friction however, especially as to the control of revenues, since 
at present there are hardly enough funds for one administration, 
let alone two. 



[38] 



2. 

THE members of the new southern government are 
strikingly different in type from those one meets else- 
where whether in Peking or the provincial capitals. 
The latter men are literally mediaeval when they are not late 
Roman Empire, though most of them have learned a little mod- 
ern patter to hand out to foreigners. The former are educated 
men, not only in the school sense and in the sense that they 
have had some special training for their jobs, but in the sense 
that they think the ideas and speak the language current among 
progressive folk all over the world. They welcome inquiry and 
talk freely of their plans, hopes and fears. I had the opportunity 
of meeting all the men who are most influential in both the local 
and federal governments; these conversations did not take the 
form of interviews for publication, but I learned that there are 
at least three angles from which the total situation is viewed. 

Governor Chen has had no foreign education and speaks no 
English. He is distinctively Chinese In his training and outlook. 
He Is a man of force, capable of drastic methods, straight- 
forward Intellectually and physically, of unquestioned integrity 
and of almost Spartan life in a country where official position 
is largely prized for the luxuries it makes possible. For example, 
practically alone among Chinese provincial officials of the first 
rank he has no concubines. Not only this, but he proposed to 
the provincial assembly a measure to disenfranchise all persons 
who have concubines. (The measure failed because it is said 
Its passage would have deprived the majority of the assembly- 
men of their votes.) He is by all odds the most impressive of 
all the officials whom I have met in China. If I were to select 
a man likely to become a national figure of the first order in the 
future, it would be, unhesitatingly, Governor Chen. He can 
give and also command loyalty — a fact which in Itself makes 
him almost unique. 

His views In gist are "as follows: The problem of problems 
in China is that of real unification. Industry and education are 
held back because of lack of stability of government, and the 
better elem'cnts in society seclude themselves from all public 
effort. The question is how this unification Is to be obtained. 
In the past It has been tried by force used by strong individuals. 
Yuan Shi Kal tried and failed; Feng Kuo Chang tried and 

[39] 



failed; Tuan Chi Jui tried and failed. That method must be 
surrendered. China can be unified only by the people them- 
selves, employing not force but the methods of normal poHtical 
evolution. The only way to engage the people in the task is to 
decentralize the government. Futile efforts at centralization 
must be abandoned. Peking and Canton alike must allow the 
provinces the maximum of autonomy; the provincial capitals 
must give as much authority as possible to the districts, and the 
districts to the communities. Officials must be chosen by and 
from the local districts and everything must be done to encour- 
age local initiative. Governor Chen's chief ambition is to in- 
troduce this system into Kwantung province. He beheves that 
other provinces will follow as soon as the method has been de- 
monstrated, and that national unity will then be a pyramid built 
out of the local blocks. 

With extreme self-government in administrative matters, 
Governor Chen will endeavor to enforce a policy of centralized 
economic control. He says in effect that the west has developed 
economic anarchy along with political control, with the result 
of capitalistic domination and class struggle. He wishes to avert 
this consequence in China by having government control from 
the first of all basic raw materials and all basic industries, mines, 
transportation, factories for cement, steel, etc. In this way the 
provincial authorities hope to secure an equable industrial 
development of the province, while at the same time procuring 
ample revenues without resorting to heavy taxation. Since al- 
most all the other governors in China are using their power, in 
combination with the exploiting capitalists native and foreign, 
to monopolize the natural resources of their provinces for priv- 
ate profit, it is not surprising that Governor Chen's views are 
felt to be la menace to privilege and that he is advertised 
all over China as a devout Bolshevist. His views have 
special point in view of British efforts to get an economic 
stranglehold upon the province — efforts which are dealt with 
in a prior chapter. 

Another type of views lays chief stress upon the internal polit- 
ical condition of China. Its adherents say in effect: Why make 
such a fuss about having two governments for China, when, in 
point of fact, China is torn into dozens of governments? In the 
north, war is sure to break out sooner or later between Chang 

[40] 



Tso Lin and his rivals. Each military governor is afraid of his 
division generals. The brigade generals intrigue against the 
division leaders, and even colonels are doing all they can to 
further their personal power. The Peking government is a 
stuffed sham, taking orders from the military governors of the 
provinces, living only on account of jealousies among these gen- 
erals, and by the grace of foreign diplomatic support. It is 
actually bankrupt, and this actual state will soon be formally 
recognized. The thing for us to do is to go ahead, maintain 
in good faith the work of the revolution, give this province the 
best possible civil administration; then in the inevitable ap- 
proaching debacle, the southern government will be ready to 
serve as the nucleus of a genuine reconstruction. Meantime we 
want, if not the formal recognition of foreign governments, at 
least their benevolent neutrality. 

Dr. Sun still embodies in himself the spirit of the revolution 
of 191 1. So far as that was not anti-Manchu it was In essence 
nationalistic, and only accidentally republican. The day after 
the inauguration of Dr. Sun, a memorial was dedicated to the 
seventy-two patriot heroes who fell In an abortive attempt in 
Canton to throw off the Manchu yoke, some six months before 
the successful revolt. The monument is the most instructive 
single lesson which I have seen In the political history of the 
revolution. It is composed of seventy-two granite blocks. Upon 
each is engraved: Given by the Chinese National League of 
Jersey City, or Melbourne, or Mexico, or Liverpool, or Singa- 
pore, etc. Chinese nationalism is a product of Chinese migra- 
tion to foreign countries; Chinese nationalism on foreign shores 
financed the revolution, and largely furnished its leaders and 
provided its organization. Sun Yat Sen was the incarnation 
of this nationalism, which was more concerned with freeing 
China — and Asia — from all foreign domination than with 
particular political problems. And In spite of the movement of 
events since that day, he remains essentially at that stage, being 
closer in spirit to the nationalists of the European irredentist 
type than to the spirit of contemporary young China. A convinced 
republican, he nevertheless measures events and men in the 
concrete by what he thinks they will do to promote the in- 
dependence of China from foreign control, rather than by what 
they will do to promote a truly democratic government. This 

[41] 



is the sole explanation that can be given for his unfortunate 
coquetting a year ago with the leaders of the now fallen Anfu 
Club. He allowed himself to be deceived into thinking that 
they were ready to turn against the Japanese if he would give 
them his support; and his nationaUst imagination was inflamed 
by the grandiose schemes of little Hsu for the Chinese subjuga- 
tion of Mongolia. 

More openly than others, Dr. Sun admits and justifies the 
new southern government as representing a division of China. 
If, he insists, it had not been for the secession of the south in 
19 17, Japan would now be in virtually complete control of all 
China. A unified China would have meant a China ready to 
be swallowed whole by Japan. The secession localized Japanese 
aggressions, made it evident -that the south would" fightt^rather 
than be devoured, and gave a breathing spell in which public 
opinion in the north rallied against the Twenty-one Demands 
and against the military pact with Japan. Thus it saved the in- 
dependence of China. But, while it checked^ Japan, it did not 
checkmate her. She still expects with the assistance of Chang 
Tso Lin to make northern China her vass^al. The support which 
foreign governments in general and the United States in par- 
ticular are giving Peking is merely playing into the hands of the 
Japanese. The independent south affords the only obstacle 
which causes Japan to pause in her plan of making northern 
China in effect a Japanese province. A more than usually au- 
thentic rumor says that upon the occasion of the visit of the 
Japanese consul general to the new president (no other foreign 
official has made an official visit), the former offered from his 
government the official recognition of Dr. Sun as president of 
all China, if the latter would recognize the Twenty-one De- 
mands as an accomplished fact. From the Japanese standpoint 
the offer was a safe one, as this acceptance of Japanese claims 
is the one thing impossible to the new government. But mean- 
time the offer naturally confirms the nationalists of Dr. Sun's 
type in their belief that the southern split is the key to maintain- 
ing the political independence of China; or, as Dr. Sun puts it, 
that a divided China is for the time being the only means to an 
ultimately independent China. 

These views are not given as stating the whole truth of the 
situation. They are ex parte. But they are given as setting 

[42] 



I 



forth in good faith the conceptions of the leaders of the south- 
ern movement and as requiring serious attention if the situation 
of China, domestic and international, is to be understood. Upon 
my own account, and not simply as expressing the views of 
others, I have reached a conclusion quite foreign to my thought 
before I visited the south. While it is not possible to attach 
too much importance to the unity of China as a part of the 
foreign policy of the United States, it is possible to attach al- 
together too much importance to the Peking government as a 
symbol of that unity. To borrow and adapt the words of one 
southern leader, while the United States can hardly be expected 
to do other than recognize the Peking as the de facto govern- 
ment, there is no need to coddle that government and give it 
face. Such a course maintains a nominal and formal unity while 
in fact encouraging the military and corrupt forces that keep 
China divided and which make for foreign aggression. 

In my opinion as the outcome of two years' observation of 
the Chinese situation, the real interests of both China and the 
United States would be served if, in the first place, the United 
States should take the lead in securing from the diplomatic body 
in Peking the serving of express notice upon the Peking govern- 
ment that in no case would a restoration of the monarchy be 
recognized by the Powers. This may seem in America like an 
unwarranted intervention in the domestic affairs of a foreign 
country. But in fact such intervention is already a fact. The 
present government endures only in virtue of the support of 
foreign Powers. The notice would put an end to one kind of 
Intrigue, one kind of rumor and suspicion, which Is holding in- 
dustry and education back and which Is keeping China In a state 
of unrest and Instability. It would establish a period of com- 
parative quiet in which whatever constructive forces exist may 
come to the front. The second measure would be more extreme. 
The diplomacy of the United States should take the lead In 
making It clear that unless the promises about the disbanding 
of the army, and the Introduction of general retrenchment are 
honestly and Immediately carried out, the Powers will pursue 
a harsh rather than a benevolent policy toward the Peking gov- 
ernment, Inslstlrig upon Immediate payment of Interest and loans 
as they fall due and holding up the government to the strictest 
meeting of all Its obligations. The notification to be effective 

[43] 



might well include a virtual threat of withdrawal of recognition 
in case the government does not seriously try to put its profuse 
promises into execution. It should also include a definite dis- 
couragement of any expenditures designed for military conquest 
of the south. 

Diplomatic recognition of the southern government is out of 
the question at present. It is not out of the question to put on 
the financial screws so that the southern government will be al- 
lowed space and time to demonstrate what it can do by peaceful 
means to give one or more provinces a decent, honest and pro- 
gressive civil administration. It is unnecessary to enumerate 
the obstacles in the way of carrying out such a policy. But in 
my judgment it is the only policy by which the Great Powers 
will not become accomplices in perpetuating the weakness and 
division of China. It is the most straightforward way of meet- 
ing whatever plans of aggression Japan may entertain. 

May, 1 92 1. 



VI 



Federalism in China 

^' I ^ HE newcomer in China in observing and judging events 
E usually makes the mistake of attaching too much sig- 
JL nificance to current happenings. Occurrences take 
place which in the western world would portend important 
changes — and nothing important results. It is not easy to loosen 
the habit of years; and so the visitor assumes that an event 
which is striking to the point of sensationalism must surely be 
part of a train of events having a definite trend ; some deep-laid 
plan must be behind it. It takes a degree of intellectual patience 
added to time and experience to make one realize that even 
when there is a rhythm in events the tempo is so retarded that 
one must wait a long time to judge what is really going on. 
Most political events are like daily changes in the weather, 
fluctuations back and forth which may seriously affect individ- 
uals but which taken one by one tell little about the movement 
of the seasons. Even the occurrences which are due to human 

[44] 



Intention are usually sporadic and casual, and the observer errs 
by reading into them too much plot, too comprehenlsve a scheme, 
too farsighted a plan. The aim behind the event Is likely to 
be only some Immediate advantage, some direct increase of 
power, the overthrow of a rival, the grasping at greater wealth 
by an Isolated act, without any consecutive or systematic looking 
ahead. 

Foreigners are not the only ones who have erred, however, 
In judging the Chinese political situation of the last few years. 
Beginning two years ago, one heard experienced Chinese with 
political affiliations saying that it was Impossible for things to 
go on as they were for more than three months longer. Some 
decisive change must occur. Yet outwardly the situation has 
remained much the same not only for three months but for two 
years, the exception being the overthrow of the Anfu faction a 
year ago. And this occurrence hardly marked a definite turn in 
events, as it was, to a considerable extent, only a shifting of 
power from the hands of one set of tuchuns to another set. 
Nevertheless at the risk of becoming a victim of the fallacy 
which I have been setting forth, 1 will hazard the remark that 
the last few months have revealed a definite and enduring trend — 
that through the diurnal fluctuations of the strife for personal 
power and wealth a seasonal political change in society Is now 
showing Itself. Certain lines of cleavage seem to show them- 
selves, so that through the welter of striking, picturesque, sen- 
sational but meaningless events, a definite pattern Is revealed. 

This pattern is indicated by the title of this chapter — a move- 
ment toward the development of a federal form of government. 
In calling the movement one toward federalism, there is, how- 
ever, more of a jump Into the remote future than circumstances 
justify. It would be more accurate, as well as more modest, to 
say that thercTs a well defined and seemingly permanent trend 
toward provincial autonomy and local self-government accom- 
panied by a hope and a vague plan that In the future the more 
or less Independent units will recombine into the United or 
Federated States of China. Some who look far into the future 
anticipate three stages; the first being the completion of the 
present secessionist movement; the second the formation of 
northern and southern confederations respectively; the third a 
reunion into a single state. 

[45] 



To go into the detailed evidence for the existence of a definite 
and lasting movement of this sort would presume too much on 
the reader's knowledge of Chinese geography and his acquaint- 
ance with specific recent events. I shall confine myself to quite 
general features of the situation. The first feature is the new 
phase which has been assumed by the long historic antagonism 
of the north and the south. Roughly speaking, the revolution 
which established the republic and overthrew the Manchus rep- 
resented a victory for the south. But the transformation during 
the last five years of the nominal republic into a corrupt oligarchy 
of satraps or military governors or feudal lords has represented 
a victory for the north. It is a significant fact, symbolically at 
least, that the most powerful remaining tuchun or military 
governor in China — in some respects the only powerful one who 
has survived the vicissitudes of the last few years — namely Chang 
Tso Lin, is the uncrowned king of the three Manchurian prov- 
inces. The so-called civil war of the north and south is not, 
however, to be understood as a conflict of repubhcanism located 
in the south and militarism in the north. Such a notion is directly 
contrary to facts. The "civil war" till six or eight months ago 
was mainly a conflict of military governors and factions, part 
of that struggle for personal power and wealth which has been 
going on all over China. 

But recently events have taken a different course. In four of 
the southern provinces, tuchuns who seemed all powerful have 
toppled over, and the provinces have proclaimed or tacitly as- 
sumed their independence of both the Peking and the former 
military Canton governments — the province in which Canton 
situated being one of the four. I happened to be in Hunan, the 
first of the southerly provinces to get comparative independ- 
ence, last fall, not long after the overthrow of the vicious despot 
who had ruled the province with the aid of northern troops. 
For a week a series of meetings were held in Changsha, the 
capital of the province. The burden of every speech was "Hunan 
for the Hunanese." The slogan embodies the spirit of two 
powers each aiming at becoming the central authority; it is a 
conflict of the principle of provincial autonomy, represented by 
the politically more mature south, with that of militaristic cen- 
tralization, represented by Peking. 

As I write, in early September (1921), the immediate issue is 

[46] 



obscured by the fight which Wu Pei Fu is waging with the Hunan- 
ese who with nominal independence are in aim and interest alhed 
with the south. If, as is likely, Wu Pei Fu wins, he may take 
one of two courses. He may use his added power to turn against 
Chang Tso Lin and the northern militarists which will bring 
him into virtual alliance with the southerners and establish him 
as the antagonist of the federal principle. This is the course 
which his earlier record would call for. Or he may yield to the 
usual official lust for power and money and try once more the 
Yuan Shi Kai policy of mihtary centralization with himself as 
head, after trying out conclusions with Chang Tso Lin as his 
rival. This is the course which the past record of military 
leaders Indicates. But even if Wu Pei Fu follows precedent 
and goes bad, he will only hasten his own final end. This is not 
prophecy. It is only a statement of what has uniformly hap- 
pened In China just at the moment a military leader seemed to 
have complete power in his grasp. In other words, a victory 
for Wu Pei Fu may either accelerate or may retard the develop- 
ment of provincial autonomy according to the course he pursues. 
It cannot permanently prevent or deflect it. 

The basic factor that makes one sure that this trend toward 
local autonomy Is a reality and not merely one of those meaning- 
less shif tings of power which confuse the observer. Is that It Is 
In accord with Chinese temperament, tradition and circumstance. 
Feudalism Is past and gone two thousand year ago, and at no 
period since has China possessed a working centralized govern- 
ment. The absolute empires which have come and gone in the 
last two millenniums existed by virtue of non-interference and a 
religious aura. The latter can never be restored; and every 
episode of the repuoiic demonstrates that China with Its vast 
and diversified territories. Its population of between three hun- 
dred and fifty and four hundred million, Its multitude of lan- 
guages and lack of communications. Its enormous local attach- 
ments sanctified by the family system and ancestral worship, 
cannot be managed from a single and remote centre. China 
rests upon a network of local and voluntary associations cement- 
ed by custom. This fact has given it its unparallelled stability 
and Its power to progress even under the disturbed political con- 
ditions of the past ten years. I sometimes think that Americans 
with their own traditional contempt for politics and their spon- 

[47] 



taneous reliance upon self-help and local organization are the 
ones who are naturally fitted to understand China's course. 
The Japanese with their ingrained reliance upon the state have 
continually misjudged and misacted. The British understand 
better than we do the significance of local self-government; but 
they are misled by their reverence for politics so that they can- 
not readily find or see government when it does not take political 
form. 

It is not too much to say that one great cause for the over- 
throw of the Manchus was the fact that because of the pressure 
of international relations they attempted to force, especially in 
fiscal matters, a centralization upon the provinces v/holly for- 
eign to the spirit of the people. This created hostility where 
before there had been indifference. China may possibly not 
emerge from her troubles a unified nation, any more than a 
much smaller and less populous Europe emerged from the break- 
up of the Holy Rom.an Empire, a single state. Indeed one often 
wonders, not that China is divided, but that she is not much 
more broken up than she is. But one thing is certain. What- 
ever progress China finally succeeds in making will come from 
a variety of local centres, not from Peking or Canton. It will 
be effected by means of associations and organizations which 
even though they assume a political form are not primarily 
political in nature. 

Criticisms are passed, especially by foreigners, upon the pres- 
ent trend of events. The criticisms are more than plausible. 
It is evident that the present weakness of China is due to her 
divided condition. Hence it is natural to argue that the present 
movement being one of secession and general disintegration will 
increase the weakness of the country. It is also evident that 
many of China's troubles are due to the absence of any efficient 
administrative system; it is reasonable to argue that China 
cannot get even railways and universal education without a 
strong and stable central government. There is no doubt about 
the facts. It is not surprising that many friends of China deeply 
deplore the present tendency while some regard it as the final 
accomplishment of the long predicted breakup of China. But 
remedies for China's ills based upon ignoring history, psychology 
and actual conditions are so Utopian that it is not worth while 
to argue whether or not they are theoretically desirable. The 

[48] 



remedy of China's troubles by a strong, centralized government 
Is on a par with curing disease by the expulsion of a devil. The evil 
of sectionalism is real, but since it is real it cannot be dealt with by 
trying a method which implies its non-existence. If the devil is 
really there, he will not be exorcized by a formula. If the trouble 
is internal, not due to an external demon, the disease can be cured 
only by using the factors of health and vigor which the patient 
already possesses. And in China while these factors of recuper- 
ation and growth are numerous, they all exist in connection with 
local organizations and voluntary associations. The increasing 
volume of the cry that the "tuchuns must go" comes from the 
provincial and local interests which have been insulted and violat- 
ed by a nominally centralized but actually chaotic situation. After 
this negative work is completed, the constructive rebuilding of 
China can proceed only by utilizing local interests and abilities. 
In China the movement will be the opposite of that which oc- 
curred in Japan. It will be from the periphery to the centre. 

Another objection to the present tendency has force especially 
from the foreign standpoint. As already stated, the efforts of 
the Manchu dynasty in its latter days to enhance central power 
were due to international pressure. Foreign nations treated 
Peking as if it were a capital like London, Paris or Berlin, and 
in its efforts to meet foreign demands It had to try to become 
such a centre. The result was disaster. But foreign nations still 
want to have a single centre which may be held responsible. 
And subconsciously, if not consciously, this desire is responsible 
for much of the objection of foreign nationals to the local 
autonomy movement. They well know that It Is going to take a 
long time to realize the ideal of federation, and meantime where 
and what Is to be the agency responsible for diplomatic relations, 
the enforcing of Indemnities and the securing of concessions? 

In one respect the secessionist tendency is dangerous to China 
herself as well as inconvenient to the powers. It will readily 
stimulate the desire and ability of foreign nations to Interfere 
In China's domestic affairs. There will be many centres at 
which to carry on Intrigues and from which to get concessions 
Instead of one or two. There Is also danger that one foreign 
nation may line up with one group of provinces, and another 
foreign nation with another group, so that international friction 
will Increase. Even now some Japanese sources and even such 

[49] 



an independent liberal paper as Robert Young'^s Japan Chronicle 
are starting or reporting the rumor that the Cantonese experi- 
ment is supported by subsidies supplied by American capitalists 
in the hope of economic concessions. The rumor was invented 
for a sinister purpose. But it illustrates the sort of situation 
that may come into existence if there are several political centres 
in China and one foreign nation backs one and another nation, 
another. 

The danger is real enough. But it cannot be dealt with by 
attempting the impossible — namely checking the movement to- 
ward local autonomy, even though disintegration ma*y tem- 
porarily accompany it. The danger only emphasizes the funda- 
mental fact of the whole Chinese situation; that its essence is 
time. The evils and troubles of China are real enough, and 
there is no blinking the fact that they are largely of her own 
making, due to corruption, inefficiency and absence of popular 
education. But no one who knows the common people doubts 
that they will win through if they are given time. And in the 
concrete this means that they be left politically alone to work out 
their own destiny. There will doubtless be proposals at the Pacific 
Conference to place China under some kind of international 
tutelage. This chapter and the events connected with the tend- 
ency which it reports will be cited as showing this need. Some 
of the schemes will spring from motives that are hostile to 
China. Some will be benevolently conceived in a desire to save 
China from herself and shorten her period of chaos and con- 
fusion. But the hope of the world's peace, as well as of China's 
freedom, lies in adhering to a policy of Hands Off . Give China 
a chance. Give her time. The danger lies in being in a hurry, 
in impatience, possibly in the desire of America to show that 
we are a power in international affairs and that we too have a 
positive foreign policy. And a benevolent policy of supporting 
China from without, instead of promoting her aspirations from 
within, may in the end do China about as much harm as a policy 
conceived in malevolence. 

July, 192 1. 



[50] 



yn 
A Parting of the Ways for America 



1 



■^HE realities of American policy in China and toward 
China are going to be more seriously tested in the fu- 
ture than they ever have been in the past. Japanese 
papers have been full of protests against any attempt by the 
Pacific Conference to place Japan on trial. Would that Ameri- 
can journals were full of warnings that America is on trial at 
the Conference as to the sincerity and intelligent goodwill behind 
her amiable professions. The world will not stop with the 
Pacific Conference; the latter, however important, will not arrest 
future developments, and the United States will continue to be 
on trial till she has established by her acts a permanent and 
definite attitude. For the realities of the situation cannot be ex- 
hausted in any formula or in any set of diplomatic agreements, 
even if the Conference confounds the fears of pessimists and 
results in a harmonious union of the powers in support of China's 
legitimate aspirations for free political and economic growth. 

The Conference, however, stands as a symbol of the larger 
situation; and its decisions or lack of them will be a considerable 
factor in the determination of subsequent events. Sometimes 
one is obliged to fall back on a trite phrase. We are genuinely 
at a parting of the ways. Even if we should follow in our old 
path, there would none the less be a parting of the ways, for 
we cannot consistently tread the old path unless we are ani- 
mated by a much more conscious purpose and a more general 
and intelligent knowledge of affairs than have controlled our 
activities in the past. 

The ideas expressed by an English correspondent about the 
fear that America is soon to be an active source of danger in 
the Far East are not confined to persons on foreign shores. The 
prevailing attitude in some circles of American opinion is that 
called by President Hibben cynical pessimism. All professed 
radicals and many liberals believe that if our course has been 
better in the past it has been due to geographical accidents com- 
bined with indifference and with our undeveloped economic status. 
Consequently they believe that since we have now become what is 

[51] 



called a world-power and a nation which exports instead of im- 
porting capital, our course will soon be as bad as that of any of 
the rest of them. In some quarters this opinion is clearly an 
emotional reaction following the disillusionments of Versailles. 
In others, it is due to adherence to a formula : nothing in inter- 
national affairs can come out of capitalism and America is em- 
phatically a capitalistic country. Whether or not these feelings 
are correct, they are not discussable ; neither an emotion nor an 
absolute formula is subject to analysis. 

But there are specific elements in the situation which give 
grounds for apprehension as to the future. These specific ele- 
ments are capable of detection and analysis. An adequate reali- 
zation of their nature will be a large factor in preventing cynical 
apprehensions from becoming actual. This chapter Is an attempt 
at a preliminary listing, inadequate, of course, as any preliminary 
examination must be. While an a priori argument based on a 
fatalistic formula as to how a "capitalistic nation" must conduct 
itself does not appeal to me, there are nevertheless concrete facts 
which are suggested by that formula. Part of our comparatively 
better course in China In the past is due to the fact that we have 
not had the continuous and close alliance between the State 
Department and big banking interests which is found in the 
case of foreign powers. No honest well-informed history of 
developments In China could be written in which the Russian 
Asiatic Bank, the Foreign Bank of Belgium, the French Indo- 
China Bank and Banque Industrielle, the Yokohama Specie 
Bank, the Hongkong-Shanghai Bank, etc., did not figure promi- 
nently. These banks work in the closest harmony, not only with 
railway and construction syndicates and big manufacturing In- 
terests at home, but also with their respective foreign oflices. 
It is hardly too much to say that legations and banks have been 
In most important matters the right and left hands of the same 
body. American business interests have complained in the past 
that the American government does not give to American trad- 
ers abroad the same support that the nationals of other states 
receive. In the past these complaints have centred largely about 
actual wrongs suffered or helieved to have been suffered by 
American business undertakings carried on In a foreign country. 
With the present expansion of capital and of commerce, the 
same complaints and demands are going to be made not with 

[52] 



reference to grievances suffered, but with reference to further- 
ing, to pushing American commercial interests in connection 
with large banking groups. It would take a credulous person 
to deny the influence of big business in domestic politics. As 
we become more interested in commerce and banking enterprises 
what assurance have we that the alliance will not be transferred 
to international politics? 

It should be noted that the policy of the open door as affirmed 
by the great powers — and as frequently violated by them — 
even if it be henceforth observed in good faith, does not ade- 
quately protect us from this danger. The open door policy is 
not primarily a policy about China herself but rather about the 
policies of foreign powers toward one another with respect to 
China. It demands equality of economic opportunity for dif- 
ferent nations. Were it enforced, it would prevent the granting 
of monopolies to any one nation : there is nothing in it to render 
impossible a conjoint exploitation of China by foreign powers, 
an organized monopoly in which each nation has its due share 
with respect to others. Such an organization might conceivably 
reduce friction among the great powers, and thereby reduce the 
danger of future wars — as long as China herself is impotent 
to go to war. The agreement might conceivably for a consid- 
erable time be of benefit to China herself. But it is clear that 
for the United States to become a partner in any such arrange- 
ment would involve a reversal of our historic policy in the Far 
East. It might be technically consistent with the open door 
policy, but it would be a violation of the larger sense in which 
the American people has understood and praised that ideal. He 
is blind who does not see that there are forces making for such 
a reversal. And since we are all more or less blind, an opening 
of our eyes to the danger is one of the conditions of its not be- 
ing realized. 

One of the forces which is operative is indicated by the phrase 
that an international agreement on an economic and financial 
basis might be of value to China herself. The mere suggestion 
that such a thing is possible is abhorrent to many, especially to 
radicals. There seems to be something sinister In it. So it is 
worth explaining how and why it might be so. In the first place, 
it would obviously terminate the particularistic grabbing for 
"leased" territory, concessions and spheres of influence which 

[53] 



has so damaged China. At the present time, the point of this 
remark lies in its implied reference to Japan, as at one time it 
might have applied to Russia. Fear of Japan's aims in China 
is not confined to China; the fear is widespread. An interna- 
tional economic arrangement may therefore be plausibly present- 
ed as the easiest and most direct method of relieving China of 
the Japanese menace. For Japan to stay out would be to give 
herself away; if she came in, it would subject Japanese activities 
to constant scrutiny and control. There is no doubt that part 
of the fear of Japan regarding the Pacific Conference is due 
to a belief that some such arrangement is contemplated. The 
case is easily capable of such presentation as to make it appeal 
to Americans who are really friendly to China and who haven't 
the remotest interest in her economic exploitation. 

The arrangement would, for example, automatically eliminate 
the Lansing-Ishii agreement with its embarrassing ambiguous 
recognition of Japan's special interests in China. 

The other factor is domestic. The distraction and civil wars 
of China are commonplaces. So is the power exercised by the 
military governors and generals. The greater one's knowledge, 
the more one perceives how intimately the former evil is de- 
pendent upon the latter. The financial plight of the Chinese 
government, its continual foreign borrowings which threaten 
bankruptcy in the near future, depend upon militaristic domina- 
tion and wild expenditure for unproductive purposes and 
squeeze. Without this expense, China would have no great 
difficulty henceforth in maintaining a balance in her budget. The 
retardation of public education whose advancement — especially 
in elementary schools — is China's greatest single need is due to 
the same cause. So is the growth in official corruption which is 
rapidly extending into business and private life. 

In fact, every one of the obstacles to' the progress of China 
is connected with the rule of military factions and their struggles 
with one another for complete mastery. An economic interna- 
tional agreement among the great powers can be made which 
would surely reduce and possibly eliminate the greatest evils 
of "militarism." Many liberal Chinese say in private that they 
would be willing to have a temporary international receivership 
for government finance, provided they could be assured of its 
nature and the exact date and conditions of its termination — 

[54] 



a proviso which they are sensible enough to recognize would be 
extremely difficult of attainment. American leadership in form- 
ing and executing any such scheme would, they feel, afford the 
best reassurance as to its nature and terms. Under such cir- 
cumstances a plausible case can be made out for proposals which, 
under the guise of traditional American friendship for China, 
would in fact commit us to a reversal of our historic policy. 

There are radicals abroad and at home who think that our 
entrance into a Consortium already proves that we have entered 
upon the road of reversal and who naturally see in the Pacific 
Conference the next logical step. I have previously stated my 
own belief that our State Department proposed the Consortium 
primarily for political ends, as a means of checking the pohcy 
pursued by Japan of making unproductive loans to China m 
return for which she was getting an immediate grip on China s 
natural resources and preparing the way for direct admimstra- 
tive and financial control when the day of reckomng and fore- 
closure should finally come, I also said that the Consortium 
was between two stools, the financial and the political and that 
up to the present its chief value had been negative and prevent- 
ive, and that jealousy or lack of interest by Japan and Great 
Britain in any constructive policy on the part of the Consortium 
was likely to maintain the same condition. I have seen no reason 
thus far to change my mind on this point, nor in regard to the 
further belief that probably the interests of China in the end 
will be best served by the continuation of this deterrent function. 
But the question is bound to arise: why continue the Consortium 
if it isn't doing anything? The pressure of foreign powers in- 
terested in the exploitation of China and of impatient American 
economic interests may combine to put an end to the present 
rather otiose existence led by the Consortium. The two stools 
between which the past action of the American government has 
managed to swing the Consortium may be united to form a sin- 
gle solid bench. 
"At the risk of being charged with credulous guUibdity, or 
something worse, I add that up to the present time the Amen- 
can phase of the Consortium hasn't shown perceptible signs of 
becoming a club exercised by American finance over Chma s 
economic integrity and independence. I believe the repeated 
statements of the American representative that he himself and 

[55l 



the interests he represents would be glad if China proved her 
ability to finance her own public utilities without resorting to 
foreign loans. This belief is confirmed by the first public ut- 
terance of the new American minister to China who in his ref- 
erence to the Consortium laid emphasis upon its deterrent func- 
tion and upon the stimulation it has given to Chinese bankers 
to finance public utilities. And it is the merest justice to Mr. 
Stevens, the American representative, to say that he represents 
the conservative investment type of banker, not the "promotion" 
type, and that thus far his great concern has been the problem 
of protecting the buyer of such securities as are passed on by 
the banks to the ultimate investor — so much so that he has 
aroused criticism from American business interests impatient 
for speedy action. But there is a larger phase of the Consor- 
tium concerning which I think apprehensions may reasonably 
be entertained. 

Suppose, if merely by way of hypothesis, that the American 
government is genuinely interested in China and in making the 
policy of the open door and Chinese territorial and administra- 
tive integrity a reality, not merely a name, and suppose that it 
is interested in doing so from an American self-interest sufficient- 
ly enlightened to perceive that the political and economic ad- 
vancement of the United States is 'best furthered by a policy 
which is identical with China's ability to develop herself freely 
and independently: what then would be the wise American 
course? In short, it would be to view our existing European 
interests and issues (due to the war) and our Far Eastern in- 
terests and issues as parts of one and the same problem. If 
we are actuated by the motive hypothetically imputed to our 
government and we fail in its realization, the chief reason will 
be that we regard the European question and the Asiatic prob- 
lem as two different questions, or because we identify them from 
the wrong end. 

Our present financial interest in Europe is enormous. It in- 
volves not merely foreign governmental loans but a multitude 
of private advances and commitments. These financial entan- 
glements affect not merely our industry and commerce but our 
politics. They involve much more immediately pressing con- 
cerns than to our Asiatic relations, and they involve billions 
where the latter involve millions. The danger under such con- 

[56] 



ditlons that our Asiatic relations will <be sacrificed to our Euro- 
pean is hardly fanciful. 

To make this abstract statement concrete, the firm of bankers, 
J. P. Morgan & Co., which is most heavily involved in European 
indebtedness to the United States, is the firm which is the lead- 
ing spirit in the Consortium for China. It seems almost inevi- 
table that the Asiatic problem should look like small potatoes 
in comparison with the European one, especially as our own in- 
dustrial recuperation is so closely connected with European re- 
lations, while the Far East cuts a negligible figure. To my mind 
the real danger to set out upon selfish exploitation of China : 
intelligent self-interest, tradition and the fact that our chief asset 
in China is our past freedom from a predatory course, dictate 
a course of cooperation with China. The danger is that China 
will be subordinated and sacrificed because of primary preoccu- 
pation with the high finance and politics of Europe, that she will 
be lost in the shufile. 

The European aspect of the problem can be made more con- 
crete by reference to Great Britain in particular. That country 
suffers from the embarrassment of the Japanese alliance. She 
has already made it sufficiently clear that she would like to 
draw America into the alliance, making it tripartite, since that 
would be the easiest way of maintaining good relations with 
both Japan and the United States. There is no likelihood that 
any such step will be consummated. But British diplomacy is 
experienced and astute. And by force of circumstances our 
high finance has contracted a sort of economic alliance with 
Great Britain. There is no wish to claim superior virtue for 
America or to appeal to the strong current of anti-British sen- 
timent. But the British foreign office exists and operates apart 
from the tradition of liberalism which has mainly actuated Eng- 
lish domestic politics. It stands peculiarly for the Empire side 
of the British Empire, no matter what party is in the saddle 
in domestic affairs. Every resource will be employed to bring 
about a settlement at the Pacific Conference which, even though 
it includes some degree of compromise on the part of Great 
Britain, will bend the Asiatic policy of the United States to the 
British traditions in the Far East, instead of committing Great 
Britain to combining with the United States in making a reality 
of the integrity of China to which both countries are nominally 

[57] 



committed. It does not seem an extreme statement to say that 
the immediate issues of the Conference depend upon the way 
in which our financial commitments in Europe are treated, either 
as reasons for our making concessions to European policy or 
on the other hand as a means of securing an adherence of the 
European powers to the traditional American policy. 

A publicist in China who is of British origin and a sincere 
friend of China remarked in private conversation that if the 
United States could not secure the adherence of Great Britain 
to her Asiatic policy by persuasion (he was deploring the Japan- 
ese alliance) she might do so by buying it — through remission 
of her national debt to us. It is not necessary to resort to the 
measure so baldly suggested. But the remark at least suggests 
that our involvement in European, especially British, finance and 
politics may be treated in either of two ways for either of two 
results. 



THAT the Chinese people generally speaking has a less 
antagonistic feeling toward the United States than to- 
wards other powers seems to me an undoubted fact. 
The feeling has been disturbed at divers times by the treatment 
of the Chinese upon the Pacific coast, by the exclusion act, by 
the turning over of our interest in the building of the Peking- 
Canton (or Hankow) railway to a European group, by the 
Lansing-Ishii agreement, and finally by the part played by 
President Wilson in the Versailles decision regarding Shantung. 
Those disturbances in the main, however, have made them dubi- 
ous as to our skill, energy and intelligence rather than as to our 
good-will. Americans, taken individually and collectively, are 
to the Chinese — at least such was my impression — a rather sim- 
ple folk, taking the word in its good and its deprecatory sense. 
In noting the Chinese reaction to the proposed Pacific Confer- 
ence, it was interesting to see the combination of an almost un- 
limited hope that the United States was to lead in protecting 
them from further aggressions and in rectifying existing evils, 
with a lack of confidence, a fear that the United States would 
have something put over on it. 

Friendly feeling is of course mainly based upon a negative 

[58] 



fact, the fact that the United States has taken no part in "leas- 
ing" territories, estabhshing spheres and setting up extra-na- 
tional post-offices. On the positive side stands the contribu- 
tion made by Americans to education, especially medical, and 
that of girls and women, and to philanthropy and relief. Po- 
litically, there are the early service of Burlinghame, the open 
door policy of John Hay (though failure to maintain it in fact 
while securing signatures to it on paper is a considerable part 
of the Chinese belief in our defective energy) and the part 
played by the United States in moderating the terms of the set- 
tlement of the Boxer outbreak, in addition to a considerable 
number of minor helpful acts. China also remembers that we 
were the only nation to take exception to the treaties embody- 
ing the Twenty-one Demands. While our exception was chiefly 
made on the basis of our own interests which these treaties might 
injuriously affect, a sentiment exists that the protest was a pledge 
of assistance to China when the time should be opportune for 
raising the whole question. And without doubt the reservation 
made on May i6, 19 15, by our State Department is a strong 
card at the forthcoming Conference if the Department wishes 
to play it. 

From an American standpoint, the open door principle rep- 
resents one of the only two established principles of American 
diplomacy, the other being, of course, the Monroe Doctrine. 
In connection with sentimental or idealistic associations which 
have clustered about it, it constitutes us in some vague fashion 
in both the Chinese and American public opinion a sort of guar- 
dian or at least spokesman of the interests of China in relation 
to foreign powers. Although, as was pointed out in a former 
chapter, the open door policy directly concerns other nations in 
their relation to China rather than China herself, yet the viola- 
tion of the policy by other powers has been so frequent and so 
much to the detriment of China, that American interest, prestige 
and moral sentiment are now implicated in such an enforcement 
of it as will redound to the advantage of China. 

Citizens of other countries are often irritated by a suggestion 
of such a relationship between the United States and China. 
It presents itself as a proclamation of superior national virtue 
under cover of which the United States aims to establish its 
influence in China at the expense of other countries. The irri- 

[59] 



tation is exasperated by the fact that the situation as it stands 
is an undoubted economic and political asset of the United States 
in China. We may concede without argument any contention 
that the situation is not due to any superior virtue but rather to 
contingencies of history and geography — in which respect it is 
not unlike many things that pass for virtues with individuals. 
The contention may be admitted without controversy because it 
is not pertinent to the main issue. The question is not so much 
how the state of affairs came about as what it now is, how it is to 
be treated and what consequences are in flow from it. It is 
a fact that up to the present an intelligent self-interest of Ameri- 
ca has coincided with the interests of a stable, independent and 
progressive China. It is also a fact that American traditions 
and sentiments have gathered about this consideration so that 
now there is widespread conviction in the American people of 
moral obligations of assistance and friendly protection owed by 
us to China. At present, no policy can be entered upon that 
does not bear the semblance of fairness and goodwill. We have 
at least so much protection against the dangers discussed in the 
prior chapter. 

Among Americans in China and presumably at home there is 
a strong feeling that we should adopt for the future stronger 
and more positive policies than we have maintained in the past. 
This feeling seems to me fraught with dangers unless we make 
very clear to ourselves in just what respects we are to continue 
and make good in a more positive manner our traditional policy. 
To some extent our past policy has been one of drifting. Radi-. 
cal change in this respect may go further than appears upon 
the surface in altering other fundamental aspects of our policy. 
What is condemned as drifting is in effect largely the same thing 
that is also praised as non-interference. A detailed settled pol- 
icy, no matter how "constructive" it may appear to be, can 
hardly help involving us in the domestic policies of China, an 
affair of factions and a game which the Chinese understand and 
play much better than any foreigners. Such an involvement 
would at once lessen a present large asset in China, aloofness 
from internal intrigues and struggles. 

The specific protests of Chinese in this country — mainly Can- 
tonese — against the Consortium seem to me mainly based on 
misapprehension. But their general attitude of opposition nev- 

[60] 



ertheless conveys an important lesson. It is based on a belief 
that the effect of the Consortium will be to give the Peking gov- 
ernment a factitious advantage in the internal conflict which is 
waging in China, so that to all intents and purposes it will mark 
a taking of sides on our part. It is well remembered that the 
effect of the "reorganization" loan of the prior Consortium — 
in which the United States was not a partner — was to give 
Yuan Shi Kai the funds which seated him and the militarist 
faction after him, firmly in the governmental saddle. Viewing 
the matter from a larger point of view than that of Canton vs. 
Peking, the most fundamental objection I heard brought by 
Chinese against the Consortium was in effect as follows : The 
republican revolution in China has still to be wrought out; the 
beginning of ten years ago has been arrested. It remains to 
fight it out. The inevitable effect of increased foreign financial 
and economic interest in China, even admitting that its industrial 
effect was advantageous to China, would be to create an interest 
in stabilizing China politically, which in effect would mean to 
sanctify the status quo, and prevent the development of a revo- 
lution which cannot be accomplished without internal disorders 
that would affect foreign investments unfavorably. These con- 
siderations are not mentioned for the sake of throwing light 
on the Consortium: they are cited as an illustration of the 
probability that a too positive and constructive development of 
our tradition of goodwill to China would involve us in an inter- 
ference with Chinese domestic affairs injurious to China's wel- 
fare, to that free and independent development in which we 
profess such interest. 

But how, it will be asked, are we to protect China from for- 
eign depredations, particularly those of Japan, how are we to 
change our nominal goodwill into a reality, if we do not enter 
much more positive and detailed policies? If there was in 
existence at the present time any such thing as a diplomacy of 
peoples as distinct from a diplomacy of governments, the ques- 
tion would mean something quite different from what it now 
means. As things now stand the people should profoundly dis- 
trust the politicians' love for China. It is too frequently the 
reverse side of fear and incipient hatred of Japan, colored per- 
haps by anti-British feeling. 

There should be no disguising of the situation. The aggres- 

[6i] 



sive activities of other nations in China, centering but not ex- 
hausted at this time in Japan, are not merely sources of trouble 
to China but they are potential causes of trouble in our own 
international relationships. We are committed by our tradi- 
tion and by the present actualities of the situation to attempting 
something positive for China as respects her international status, 
to live up to our responsibility is a most difficult and delicate 
matter. We have on the one side to avoid getting entangled 
in quasi-imperialistic European policies in Asia, whether under 
the guise of altruism, of putting ourselves in a position where 
we can exercise a more effective supervision of their behavior, 
or by means of economic expansion. On the other side, we 
have to avoid drifting into that kind of covert or avowed an- 
tagonism to European and Japanese imperialism which will only 
increase friction, encourage a combination especially of Great 
Britain and Japan — or of France and Japan — against us, and 
bring war appreciably nearer. 

We need to bear in mind that China will not be saved from 
outside herself. Even if by a successful war we should relieve 
China from Japanese encroachments, from all encroachmerts, 
China would not of necessity be brought nearer her legitimate 
goal of orderly and prosperous internal development. Apart 
from the question of how far war can now settle any funda- 
mental issues without begetting others as dangerous, China of 
all countries is the one where settlement by force, especially by 
outside force, is least applicable, and most likely to be enormous- 
ly disserviceable. China is used to taking time to deal with her 
problems: she can neither understand not profit by impatient 
methods of the western world which are profoundly alien to 
her genius. Moreover a civilization which is on a continental 
scale, which is so old that the rest of us are parvenus in com- 
parison, which is thick and closely woven, cannot be hurried in 
its development without disaster. Transformation from within 
it its sole way out, and we can best help China by trying to see 
to it that she gets the time she needs in order to effect this trans- 
formation, whether or not we like the particular form it as- 
sumes at any particular time. 

A successful war in behalf of China would leave untouched 
her problems of education, of factional and sectional forces, of 
political immaturity showing itself in present incapacity for or- 

[62] 



ganlzation. It would ahcct A^f industrial growth undoubtedly, 
but in all human probability for the worse, increasing the likeli- 
hood that she would enter upon an industrialization which 
would repeat the worst evils of western industrial life, without 
the immunities, resistances and remedial measures which the 
West has evolved. The imagination cannot conceive a worse 
crime than fastening western industrialism upon China before 
she has developed within herself the meaning of coping with 
the forces which it would release. The danger is great enough 
as it Is. War waged in China's behalf by western powers and 
western methods would make the danger practically irresistible. 
In addition we should gain a permanent interest in China which 
is likely to be of the most dangerous character to ourselves. If 
we were not committed by it to future imperialism, we should 
be luckier than we have any right to hope to be. These things 
are said against a mental protest to admitting even by implica- 
tion the prospect of war with Japan, but it seems necessary to 
say them. 

These remarks are negative and vague as to our future 
course. They imply a confession of lack of such wisdom as 
would enable me to make positive definite proposals. But at 
least I have confidence in the wisdom and goodwill of the Amer- 
ican and other peoples to deal with the problem, if they are 
only called into action. And the first condition of calling wis- 
dom and goodwill into effective existence is to recognize the 
seriousness of the problem and the utter futulity of trying to 
force its solution by impatient and hurried methods. Pro-Jap- 
anese apologetics is dangerous; it obscures the realities of the 
situation. An irritated anti-Japanism that would hasten the 
solution of the Chinese problem merely by attacking Japan is 
equally fatal to discovering and applying a proper method. 

More specifically and also more generically, proper publicity 
Is the greatest need. If, as Secretary Hughes has Intimated, 
a settlement of the problems of the Pacific is made a condition 
of arriving at an agreement regarding reduction and limitation 
of armaments, It is likely that the Conference might better never 
be held. In eagerness to do something which will pass as a set- 
tlement, either China's — and Siberia's — interests will be sacri- 
ficed in some unfa^ compromise, or Irritation and friction will 
be increased — and in the end so will armaments. In any literal 

[63] 



sense, it is ridiculous to suppose that the problems of the Pacific 
can be settled in a few weeks, or months — or years. Yet the 
dicussion of the problems, in separation from the question of 
armament, may be of great use. For it may further that pub- 
licity which is a pre-condition of any genuine settlement. This 
involves the public in diplomacy. But it also involves a wider 
publicity, one which will enlighten the world about the facts of 
Asia, internal and international. 

Scepticism about Foreign Offices, as they are at present con- 
ducted, is justified. But scepticism about the power of public opin- 
ion, if it can be aroused and instructed, to reshape Foreign Office 
policies means hopelessness about the future of the world. Let 
everything possible be done to reduce armament, if only to se- 
cure a naval holiday on the part of the three great naval powers, 
and if only for the sake of lessening taxation. Let the Con- 
ference on Problems devote itself to discussing and making 
known as fully and widely as possible the element and scope 
of those problems, and the fears — or should one call them 
hopes? — of the cynics will be frustrated. It is not so important 
that a decision in the American sense of the Yap question be 
finally and forever arrived at, as it is that the need of China 
and the Orient in general for freer and fuller communications 
with the rest of the world be made clear — and so on, down or 
up the list of agenda. The commercial open door is needed. 
But the need is greater that the door be opened to light, to 
knowledge and understanding. If these forces will not create 
a public opinion which will in time secure a lasting and just set- 
tlement of other problems, there is no recourse save despair of 
civilization. Liberals can do something better than predicting 
failure and impugning motives. They can work for the opened 
door of open diplomacy, of continuous and intelligent inquiry, 
of discussion free from propaganda. To shirk this responsi- 
bility on the alleged ground that economic imperialism and or- 
ganized greed will surely bring the Conference to failure is 
supine and snobbish. It is one of the factors that may lead the 
United States to take the wrong course in the parting of the ways. 

October, 192 1. 

[64] 



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